Burn bans: too much government or too little?

David Sommerstein reported again on the looming ban on most forms of domestic burning, a restriction that will extend from household garbage to seasonal burning of yard and field waste.

A lot of people in the North Country are furious. Burn barrels are a familiar part of the landscape here.

I think this debate raises an interesting set of questions, challenging those who want more government services and those who want a more libertarian society.

There is universal scientific consensus that burning garbage in your backyard is seriously bad for the environment and human health. This from the website of New York’s DEC:

Burning about 10 pounds a day of trash in a household burn barrel may produce as much air pollution as a modern, well-controlled incinerator burning 400,000 pounds a day of trash.

Ick. But in many North Country communities, there is no municipal garbage collection.

People rely on private garbage companies, they haul their own trash to the dump, they dump illegally, or they burn.

What’s interesting to me is that the private sector and the government have both failed to find affordable and convenient alternatives.

Government stayed out of the way, but that didn’t seem to produce any cool, libertarian solutions.

So no we’re now banning a common form of trash disposal, without giving many low-income families in remote rural areas a viable option.

I think it’s kind of a microcosm of the conundrum that we face on a larger, national scale.

People are leery of paying more in taxes, or footing the bill for bigger government, even when there are serious problems that need fixing.

But we’re not sure what to do when no other solutions materialize.

What are your thoughts? Is this a case where government needs to step in? If not, then what happens to all the trash?