There is also the commercial element. Here in Texas, there are dodgy cleanup services who will be more than happy to take your toxic stuff (paint thinner cans, used oil, etc), then merrily go back into some backwoods area and shove it out of the bed of the pickup truck. With costs so high to dump legally in Austin, it is no wonder why backroads have become places where trash starts accumulating.
I also agree it is the fact there isn't a real middle class anymore. The manufacturing jobs are overseas, most tech jobs are offshored (except for the entry level call center stuff.) Yes, there is DevOps, but the goal of that concept is for management to fire their entire IT operation but one person that hands the user accounts to the offshore development teams. Even with the tech sector, the boom there doesn't expand outside of the Bay Area, Austin, NYC, and other cities.
As for permits, no thanks. One a permit is needed, prices will just get jacked up, restrictions added, and so on. The _last_ thing we need is more government interference, since it will mean that they hand the management over to a private corporation who will charge insane prices and not really care about much else.
