Brooklyn, NY — In a heroic attempt to save humanity from the dangers of someone forgetting to recycle, New York has deployed garbage police to sift through residents’ discarded household items.
New York City sanitation police are seen going from house to house, tearing open garbage bags, looking for recyclable items and then citing residents who failed to comply.
This move by the city is ostensibly for the environment. However, instead of simply asking the residents to move the recyclable items out of the trash, they have turned it into a revenue collection scheme — not to mention the Orwellian nightmare that is police searching your trash.
A video uploaded to Facebook this week shows how angry this process is making some residents.
When a man finds officers tearing open garbage on his street, he pulls out his phone and begins recording.
“Ma’am, can you tell me why you’re taking out garbage from people’s houses in order to give tickets?”
“Can you tell me why, officer, are you giving out tickets?
“You are not recycling properly,” responded the officer.
The man recording then snaps and gives them a piece of his mind as the bureaucratic sanitation officer stands there in disbelief.
“Now you took out garbage from a residents’ house where I have a few witnesses behind you [who saw] that you took out garbage in order to give summonses. I want to know how you dare do something like that. I think you have the nerve to do something like this. You go from one resident to another in order to take out [their] garbage because you want to give out summonses. You have some nerve. You better get out of here, because this is going all over social media. You have some nerve. Are you a human person?”
After letting the male officer have it, the man filming then turns to the female officer and lets loose on her.
“Could you do me a favor? Make sure that everybody on social media should know what you have done. We have witnesses on this block who know what you have done. I want to know if you want to continue doing this type of garbage. You are taking out garbage from people’s trash bags in order to give out tickets. How dare you do that?”
“Please stop screaming,” says the male officer.
“I don’t want to stop screaming. I want to continue screaming because you have everybody on the block upset. You have the nerve. And you consider yourself an officer? Are you a human person? How dare you do this? All over social media? Everybody is going to know who you are.”
The man’s predictions about this video going all over social media were right and as of Sunday, the video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
As for concerns about police searching your garbage, the law states that is no expectation of privacy in the trash that you put out by the curb.
Your right to privacy in your property extends to the area immediately surrounding your home. This area, however, does not include trash that is left outside your home on the curb for pickup. Since courts have decided you have no expectation of privacy in trash left out on the street, police can and will dig through your waste without probable cause or a warrant.
h/t PINAC
