THE RIGHT THING: TRASH TALK

In the nine years I've been writing a column on ethics, I've all but given up trying to predict what topics will draw the most response from readers. A column questioning Vice President Cheney's claim that he has no financial ties to Halliburton failed to gain much traction (The Right Thing: When Executives Say They Don’t Have a Clue & THE RIGHT THING; With the Benefit of Hindsight, a Year-End Mea Culpa), while one about tapping into a neighbor's wireless Internet service continues to raise readers' hackles to this day (The Right Thing: SURFING ON BORROWED TIME).

But the column that drew by far the strongest response I've ever received was one that I wrote a couple of years ago about whether it was OK to let someone take recyclables from a bin set up at a Home Depot near Columbus, Ohio (The Right Thing: WHO'S STEALING MY TRASH? & The Right Thing: WHAT WAS I THINKING?). I argued that there was no harm and thus no foul from an ethical standpoint. Many readers chose to differ, arguing that the guy was robbing the community of funds used to pay for recycling efforts in the region.

So it is with some trepidation that I approach this week's topic: trash-- or, more precisely, trash disposal after a getaway to a family cabin.

Add to the mix that an adult son in his 40s would like me to settle a disagreement he has been having with his mother-in-law about the right thing to do, and you have the makings of a perfectly messy storm.

The situation is simple enough: Since no one wanted to share a four-hour car ride home to Mission Viejo, Calif., with a 13-gallon bag of trash, my reader's mother-in-law suggested that they dispose of the trash in the "public trash bin" outside the gas station in the little town where their family cabin is located.

My reader, Jeff E., told her that it would be ethically wrong to do so, unless permission were granted by the owner.

This led to a heated discussion of whether the bin was in fact public. Mother-in-law argued that people gassing up use it all the time to dispose of trash. Jeff E. sees a huge difference, however, between depositing an occasional fast-food wrapper and stuffing in all a household's accumulated trash from a long weekend.

"Therefore," he writes, "dumping one's household trash would essentially be stealing, since someone else is paying for the trash-bin service. Who's right?"

I'm not sure that dumping without permission equates to stealing, but otherwise Jeff E. is correct. It's wrong. If they want to dump their big bag of family trash in the gas-station trash bin, the right thing to do is to ask permission from the owner of the gas station.

Whether the trash bin is on private or public property should not make a difference in how they dispose of the trash. If there were a large trash barrel at the town center, they would be equally in the wrong to dump their household trash without first asking permission to make sure that they weren't violating any town ordinances, laws that very likely prohibit such dump-and-runs. Dumping laws vary from community to community and, no matter where you are, it's your obligation to make sure that you dispose of your trash in accordance with the law. Ignorance of the law, as they say, is no excuse.

In this particular battle, Jeff E. is right. And ultimately he did the right thing. After getting home, he got permission from the manager of the local town dump to dispose of the trash there. He attached the bag to his bicycle with bungee cords and rode the two miles to the dump to make his fully sanctioned drop-off.

Sometimes being right can be a lot of work.