Just when you thought the government of the city of Los Angeles couldn’t do any more to discourage businesses and housing providers from staying in L.A. instead of bolting beyond the boundaries, they think of something else.

Now they’re milking trash for cash.

They don’t admit to that, of course. They say it’s all for the planet. And as you probably guessed by now, the planet shows its appreciation by sending money from landfills to politicians.

Residents of Los Angeles who live in single-family homes or multi-family buildings with four units or less have their trash picked up by city workers from the Bureau of Sanitation. It’s different for commercial buildings, like hotels, restaurants and offices, and large apartment and condominium buildings. Until recently, the owners of those buildings contracted with private waste-haulers, freely choosing the company that gave them the best service at the best price.

No more. In 2014, the Los Angeles City Council voted to make private enterprise illegal in the business of trash-hauling. Mayor Eric Garcetti happily signed the new ordinance, saying he was “proud to have been an early leader in the campaign to make Los Angeles the Zero Waste capital of the nation.”

Today, as the new “RecycLA” program kicks in with a vengeance, commercial and multi-family building owners are receiving notices and sometimes visits from their new trash service providers, 11 companies selected by the city, each granted a monopoly in a different geographic area.

The companies that won the monopoly franchises were required to meet the city’s very costly conditions. They have to pay a combined $35 million in annual franchise fees to the city. They also have to provide curbside recycling pick-up and other “landfill diversion” services, buy clean-fuel trash trucks, and pay their employees the city’s higher “living wage,” currently $12.73 per hour.

But they can pass these high costs along to their captive customers, and they can collect new fees for “extra” services, like moving a trash bin more than 100 feet.

The city sets the rates, and some customers have been shocked to learn that new rates for the services they had been receiving would be as much as six times the price they were paying before.

City officials say it’s equitable and fair, because now, no one can negotiate a lower price than anyone else. The only way to lower the cost is to reduce service.

Some businesses were able to hold the price increase to 150 percent – more than double what they were paying before – by agreeing to have smaller trash bins and fewer weekly pick-ups.

But if you assume that people aren’t idiots, no business, apartment owner or homeowners association was paying for more trash pick-ups than they needed. What happens if coerced recycling doesn’t actually cut the volume of trash? Will we start seeing overflowing garbage bins throughout the city? Will Los Angeles become a destination resort for vermin?

Will new businesses choose not to locate in Los Angeles because the costs are just too high? Will this be the last straw that causes owners of rent-controlled apartment buildings to evict the tenants and sell the property to a developer?

Would you like to know how to get rid of this costly idiocy?

With 61,076 signatures, an initiative ordinance can be put on the 2018 ballot, either in June or November, to restore the competitive market in trash hauling by changing the law.

I know what you’re thinking. The rats will change it back.

That can be prevented with 282,589 signatures, enough to propose an amendment to the city charter on the 2018 ballot, ending monopoly franchises for trash-hauling.

The website of the L.A. City Clerk says November 22, 2017, is the recommended last day to file initiative ordinance petitions to place a measure on the June 5, 2018, primary ballot. For the November general election ballot, the petitions should be filed no later than April 25, 2018.

If you’re angry enough, 303,017 signatures would allow the people of Los Angeles to vote to recall the mayor. For City Council members, the signature requirements for a recall election range from 26,117 in the 11th council district down to just 13,832 in the 9th.

A movement to “recall them all” might serve a useful purpose. It would remind everyone that political power belongs not to the people who hold it, but to the people who grant it.

Susan Shelley is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. Reach her at Susan@SusanShelley.com.