Playing Games with San Francisco's Recycling Plan

On the heels of San Francisco's new law making recycling and composting mandatory, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is promoting an effort online to educate the public.

As part of the new effort, San Francisco's Department of the Environment and NorCal Waste Systems, which holds the city's disposal contracts, have produced "Recycle Slam."

The online game gives you points for tossing the right waste in the right bin (though the "old school style" graphics make it rather difficult to tell exactly what you're trying to throw away).

It's all part of a goal to get San Francisco to have zero trash headed to area landfills -- something every city found easy to achieve a century ago before a wealth of disposable products flooded store shelves.

It may pay to play the game, or at least keep the new law from costing you -- up to $100 for individuals and $500 for businesses.

One might ask if the casual, 8-bit era game (modeled on Activision's "Ka-boom!") will really appeal to youngsters -- if the city wanted to reach out to kids, wouldn't a first-person shooter have been more appropriate?

Jackson West wonders if the goals might have been achieved with educational efforts but without the law.