Residents of Heber City, Utah, were disappointed to discover that the recyclable items they had been so carefully separating for the past year and hauling to the Wasatch County Recycle Center were, in fact, winding up in a nearby landfill instead. County officials say the deception was necessary to ensure that enough people would participate in an actual recycling program to make it worthwhile. "We had to make sure that we weren't throwing away public money on a project that wouldn't accomplish anything," says Kent Berg, public works director for Wasatch County. "If the community wasn't willing to put out the effort, we wouldn't provide the program." Despite the results of the county's experiment being, in Berg's words, "not that great," the recycling center will remain open. "Even though we didn't get the participation we were looking for," he says, "we think it's important to continue with the program," this time for real.

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