Nathaniel Hawthorne Would Be Proud

In the grand American tradition of public humiliation which Nathaniel Hawthorne so lovingly depicted in The Scarlet Letter, Boston residents will soon get "Hester Prynned" – not because they've been fooling around but because they aren't paying their trash bills.

The city is going to list the names and addresses of those who don't pay their trash bills on the city website. That smells like a privacy violation, but nasty garbage piling up smells pretty awful, too. And then there are the rats.

This news doesn't seem like that big of a deal until you hear that the city has lost millions in uncollected fines. Michele McPhee writes, "The Herald reported in 2005 that the city was owed $3.1 million in uncollected fines issued for overflowing bins, trash left out before collection times and other unsightly conduct that goes against code…. Two years later, those fines remained uncollected, and offenders racked up an additional $300,000 in trash fine debt."

The public shame isn't all. Unpaid bills and fines will be punished by denying violators the use of parking and building permits. And, to continue with the Puritan theme, if these companies, landlords, and individuals keep up their illegal dumping, they might just wind up in the stocks!

Image of the Demi Moore version of The Scarlet Letter, itself often considered a piece of trash.