As local solid-waste landfill space reaches capacity, many communities have enacted mandatory recycling programs. Such programs typically require all users of the municipal solid-waste disposal services to pre-sort their trash and remove specified recyclable materials. Recycling programs have many advantages. Among the advantages are source reduction in the volume of solid waste placed in landfills, reduced energy consumption generating raw materials, and reduced environmental degradation from reuse of raw materials.
However, often, people fail to comply with recycling programs. As a result, many communities are searching for methods to encourage or enforce recycling practices. To realize these benefits, communities have passed laws that require users to pre-sort recyclable materials from solid-waste. Such laws help to promote recycling at the source and eliminate the need to separate recyclable items from the solid waste after it has been collected and sort the recyclable items. Such separating and sorting activities can be expensive, unpleasant, time consuming, and inefficient.
Additionally, collecting recyclable waste costs money. Municipalities and other parties may recover at least some of this money by selling the recyclable materials that they collect. Also, as recycling increases, the price for many recyclable materials is dropping. Therefore, municipalities and other interested parties may wish to maximize the return they obtain from their recycling programs.
Requiring source pre-sorting of recyclable materials provides many advantages. However, one drawback of such requirements is the inability to enforce them effectively. For example, although many communities have passed legislation that requires users to pre-sort their waste, this legislation relies on voluntary compliance. In an effort to enforce mandatory sorting and recycling laws, some communities use government officials to inspect, or "sample", trash bags suspected of containing recyclable materials. However, this task is unpleasant, slow, and inefficient. Currently, there is no effective, safe, and efficient means to quickly inspect waste bags to determine if they contain recyclable materials.