Seriously, wtf can we do with all this extra manpower? There's gotta be some greater good that we can all benefit from that they can do.
Here's my idea:
Start a company that has its own insurance, etc, and basically hires locally unemployed. A pitch goes to the contributors of a local landfill that my company will come in and sort the crap. Take out all recyclables, sort organics, etc. This would have to come to a vote, but it would basically add a tax to the local residents for the duration of the project. If the council's goal is a 30% reduction, for example, my company would first start a community recycling initiative (with collection boxes and rural routes, etc), and build a recycling plant. Then, we'd coordinate with the landfill to find out where they're currently filling, and what's been sitting, and using our ever-impressive numbers (because let's face it, at this point it's almost like an army of ants when it comes to unemployed people), we should be able to progress fairly quickly. We can use heavy equipment to load the junk into hoppers that feed a belt with a magnet to pull metals, and then have people stationed along the belt to sort plastics and organics.
Could even try to partner up with some cool cat like slesh and build a waste to energy plant for reducing organics
Sure, it's a dirty job, but maybe we can get Mike Rowe to come help out.
I know this is high-in-the-sky apple-pie hopes, but what do you all think we can do?
I'd be happy to take a dollar an hour off my wage and contribute it to someone else's wage, if they were doing something I could benefit from (cleaning the landfill/recycling, etc).
