The year is 2025. New York takes the bold, unprecedented step of storing their waste in receptacles which cannot be easily chewed through by pests. Will this wild experiment yield results? Scientists remain skeptical.
It became some type of "culture" or "it always has been this way" type of situation. With a city budget in the billions and a VERY active and "enforce/fine" happy public sector there is no excuse of "people don't just follow basic sanitation rules", it's in the culture and I hope this finally starts to go away as there is no reason to be this way.
And I hope they make the congestion charge more dynamic. Here in Singapore where we had congestion charging even long before London, we have some electric gizmos that measure congestion and adjust the charge dynamically. Basically, if traffic slows down, they hike the charge. If traffic flows smoothly enough, they lower the charge.
Fwiw the pilot program isn't using metal cans either, and apparently is working.
Edit: fun side note, I've seen a squirrel eat a hole through a 2" oak door to escape a basement, so Im not discounting a motivated rat :)
Humans struggle in urban environments to resolve problems because “someone else should”.
Isn't that kinda what you're suggesting here? Most piles of trash aren't caused by homeless, its residents, so why should they need to be responsible? Residents could just buy their own cans as its their own problem
Similar, but generally less so, for some of the unemployed.
If you want to 'mobilize' people, just advertise jobs normally and use a normal hiring process. One that should, of course, be open to currently homeless or unemployed.
For your proposal, compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000