If the government started cracking down, don’t think people and businesses would say “ok this is good so we will do it,” or do you think they would resist?
Honestly I don’t think it’s against regulations per se. One work place had only one big bin in the backyard, because it’s been like that since the 50s? The other had all the bins in the yard, but inside they threw everything into one.
Of course either scenario could mean the regulations might not be strict enough.
Or maybe they are not enforced nationally but locally. One town I lived in had “waste”, “burnable waste”, paper, cardboard, plastic, bottles etc. Very confusing and I know from observation that most residents did not get it. Next town the system was quite different.
TBH I have no idea about the legal/administrative situation, but recycling is definitely a big thing here.
I don’t think there’s a way they can crack down. They can bark, but they won’t bite. And if they did bite, people would ignore them and vote for other parties in next elections. Would probably mean that the right-wing extremist party “True Finns” would gain a lot of votes and would probably become the biggest party.
But also, the bite would be so toothless that it probably wouldn’t really have the abovementioned effect. Here’s why:
The Finnish police won’t enforce a crackdown like that. They have a habit of deciding what laws they care about and what they don’t, and this is definitely one they wouldn’t care about. The government can tell them to do a crackdown of a kind, but the police will just ignore that. If they are asked about it, they’ll say “we lack the resources for that”. Which is true. If you go to Wikipedia and see how many policemen Finland has per capita, it’s about one quarter of that in Germany, for example. They really don’t and won’t have any resources for that.
Interesting. Also, I don’t think it should be a police issue. There should just be a department of waste management, and they have agents who enforce fines. Also a reporting system where people can cash in by tattling on offenders. ;)
Not in Finland. Here the idea is that such inpectors cost money, and you don’t want to waste money.
They also refuse to hire more parking wardens because those would cost money – even if in the end there would be more money in the city’s coffers than before hiring them.
They can make a rule, but absolutely nobody will enforce it.
Like what gets done?
Depends on whether the police like what needs to get done or not. If they like it, it gets done.
A relatively recent small anecdote:
They forbade using spikes in your winter tyres on one throughfare street in the centre of Helsinki. The police said that so many people will be breaking that rule that they cannot fine all of them, so they will refuse to go enforce the restriction. And after they had gone public with that, the signs were removed as meaningless.
I’ve had two cases where a car has hit me. In the other case I was in my thoughts and accidentally stood in a wrong place waiting for the light to turn green. I was technically on the roadway – it just wasn’t very clear that that’s a road. A van intentionally crashed into me with a relatively slow speed and I called the emergency number. He fled the scene, but had to later come to an interrogation because I had seen the number plate. The police then said that I have a possibility to withdraw my demands, and if I don’t they will also fine me for having gone against the red lights. They don’t have enough resources and didn’t want to bother with this case, so they made sure it’ll get closed. I was young and very badly out of money, so I let the thing be and allowed them to close the case.
Here’s a photo from the spot. The place where I was standing is marked with a blue cross, the car came from the direction shown by the red arrow:
Then there was another case, where a car saw me about to cross a street and put the pedal to the metal in order to get past the crossing before I get there, speeding through an intersection at a ridiculous speed. As the car sped very close to me, I decided to hit its back window with an open hand to tell that “that was not okay”. The driver stopped his car in middle of the street, stepped out and shouted “Who are you to touch MY car?!” and then tried to grab my throat, leaving some bruises that I then got documented by a doctor (or nurse, or whatever he was technically). The man had said that I had ran across the street crossing, endangering the traffic, and the police told me we can close the case or they can open a case against me as well. I allowed them to close the case.
Here’s the spot where that happened; the car was coming from the direction of the crane, towards the direction where this picture is made from, and I was crossing the nearest crossing in the picture from right to left:
The police is so extremely under-resourced in Finland that I can absolutely understand they are kind of desperate. If they want to have time to investigate murders and other really serious crime, they have to leave something else undone. Or otherwise murderers can just run free. And because they need to choose things to ignore to save their resources, they tend to ignore things that are done by people that they assume don’t agree with their political views.
Those things with the two traffic incidents would have folded out differently if I hadn’t been an under 30-year-old guy with a long hair and if the the drivers hadn’t been middle-aged men in both cases. The police felt like those people were their peers and symphatised with them, so they wanted me to shut up. They also really sympathise with people who drive cars and typically dislike bicyclers. Of course, in the end, that depends on the individual. Each policeman has their own values and chooses what to ignore based on what they find important.
Here’s how Finland fares regarding policemen per 100 000 inhabitants:
and here’s the same for Germany:
…oh, apparently Germany has cut its police force a LOT. Last time I checked, their number was far over 400.
Yeah I’m not surprised. Roughly half of my workplaces in the past 20 years had exactly zero recycling going on, also my current one.
If the government started cracking down, don’t think people and businesses would say “ok this is good so we will do it,” or do you think they would resist?
Honestly I don’t think it’s against regulations per se. One work place had only one big bin in the backyard, because it’s been like that since the 50s? The other had all the bins in the yard, but inside they threw everything into one.
Of course either scenario could mean the regulations might not be strict enough.
Or maybe they are not enforced nationally but locally. One town I lived in had “waste”, “burnable waste”, paper, cardboard, plastic, bottles etc. Very confusing and I know from observation that most residents did not get it. Next town the system was quite different.
TBH I have no idea about the legal/administrative situation, but recycling is definitely a big thing here.
I don’t think there’s a way they can crack down. They can bark, but they won’t bite. And if they did bite, people would ignore them and vote for other parties in next elections. Would probably mean that the right-wing extremist party “True Finns” would gain a lot of votes and would probably become the biggest party.
But also, the bite would be so toothless that it probably wouldn’t really have the abovementioned effect. Here’s why:
The Finnish police won’t enforce a crackdown like that. They have a habit of deciding what laws they care about and what they don’t, and this is definitely one they wouldn’t care about. The government can tell them to do a crackdown of a kind, but the police will just ignore that. If they are asked about it, they’ll say “we lack the resources for that”. Which is true. If you go to Wikipedia and see how many policemen Finland has per capita, it’s about one quarter of that in Germany, for example. They really don’t and won’t have any resources for that.
Interesting. Also, I don’t think it should be a police issue. There should just be a department of waste management, and they have agents who enforce fines. Also a reporting system where people can cash in by tattling on offenders. ;)
Not in Finland. Here the idea is that such inpectors cost money, and you don’t want to waste money.
They also refuse to hire more parking wardens because those would cost money – even if in the end there would be more money in the city’s coffers than before hiring them.
They can make a rule, but absolutely nobody will enforce it.
Is there a national police? A group that doesn’t get to choose what to enforce?
Like the FBI or the NCA?
Yes there is. There is no other police force than the national police. And they do choose what to enforce.
lol. That’s ridiculous. How does anything get done?!
Like what gets done?
Depends on whether the police like what needs to get done or not. If they like it, it gets done.
A relatively recent small anecdote:
They forbade using spikes in your winter tyres on one throughfare street in the centre of Helsinki. The police said that so many people will be breaking that rule that they cannot fine all of them, so they will refuse to go enforce the restriction. And after they had gone public with that, the signs were removed as meaningless.
I’ve had two cases where a car has hit me. In the other case I was in my thoughts and accidentally stood in a wrong place waiting for the light to turn green. I was technically on the roadway – it just wasn’t very clear that that’s a road. A van intentionally crashed into me with a relatively slow speed and I called the emergency number. He fled the scene, but had to later come to an interrogation because I had seen the number plate. The police then said that I have a possibility to withdraw my demands, and if I don’t they will also fine me for having gone against the red lights. They don’t have enough resources and didn’t want to bother with this case, so they made sure it’ll get closed. I was young and very badly out of money, so I let the thing be and allowed them to close the case.
Here’s a photo from the spot. The place where I was standing is marked with a blue cross, the car came from the direction shown by the red arrow:
Then there was another case, where a car saw me about to cross a street and put the pedal to the metal in order to get past the crossing before I get there, speeding through an intersection at a ridiculous speed. As the car sped very close to me, I decided to hit its back window with an open hand to tell that “that was not okay”. The driver stopped his car in middle of the street, stepped out and shouted “Who are you to touch MY car?!” and then tried to grab my throat, leaving some bruises that I then got documented by a doctor (or nurse, or whatever he was technically). The man had said that I had ran across the street crossing, endangering the traffic, and the police told me we can close the case or they can open a case against me as well. I allowed them to close the case.
Here’s the spot where that happened; the car was coming from the direction of the crane, towards the direction where this picture is made from, and I was crossing the nearest crossing in the picture from right to left:
The police is so extremely under-resourced in Finland that I can absolutely understand they are kind of desperate. If they want to have time to investigate murders and other really serious crime, they have to leave something else undone. Or otherwise murderers can just run free. And because they need to choose things to ignore to save their resources, they tend to ignore things that are done by people that they assume don’t agree with their political views.
Those things with the two traffic incidents would have folded out differently if I hadn’t been an under 30-year-old guy with a long hair and if the the drivers hadn’t been middle-aged men in both cases. The police felt like those people were their peers and symphatised with them, so they wanted me to shut up. They also really sympathise with people who drive cars and typically dislike bicyclers. Of course, in the end, that depends on the individual. Each policeman has their own values and chooses what to ignore based on what they find important.
Here’s how Finland fares regarding policemen per 100 000 inhabitants:
and here’s the same for Germany:
…oh, apparently Germany has cut its police force a LOT. Last time I checked, their number was far over 400.