Most of us don’t know what happens to our recycling after we take it to the curb each week.

On Feb. 2, hundreds of recycling workers and community supporters gathered in Oakland, Calif., at the Recycling Workers Convention to discuss a wide range of serious problems plaguing Alameda County’s recycling industry with an audience of elected officials and policy makers who oversee this supposedly “green” industry.

Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.

It seems there’s no public service or piece of property that private companies are not eyeing as potential revenue streams.  While funding anti-government think tanks like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), companies like Corrections Corporation of America, Waste Management, Maximus, Intuit, Laidlaw, Northrup Grumman, Koch Companies, Macquarie Capital Advisers, Pinnacle West, and UnitedHealthcare are hoping to use government as their candy store.