It’s interesting that you quietly swap in “people” where history mostly shows industrial corporations dumping waste for profit.

I didnt realize corporations were sentient entities capable of acting on their own, rather than groups of people doing people things…

The 1899 act was legitimately created because everyday people were literally throwing their garbage into water as a form of waste management. So much so that it was difficult to navigate boats safely, ergo “Rivers and Harbors Act” as in the places that were affected by floating masses of garbage

Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy

Why do you think sewage treatment plants exist in the first place? I’ll give you a hint, its not because people came together altruistically to build them (or even regulate that they need to exist).

The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 was signed because people, left to their own devices, self-destructively pollute their water supplies. That law mandated people couldnt dump shit in the water. It also was passed because state laws weren’t effective at stopping people from polluting the water

It wasnt enough, so there was the Water Pollution Control Act of 1948. And then the Water Quality Act of 1965. And then the Clean Water Act of 1972, which provided funding to create sewage treatment plants, and mandated that all wastewater be treated to a certain standard. And even that wasnt enough, which is why we later invented the entire EPA, an entity dedicated largely to that one issue (among similar things).

None of that would have occurred without centralized authority, nor would have been necessary if a plurality of people were not inherently self destructive when left to their own devices. Anarchism is opposed to any central authority. Thereby, under the most basic logic, sewage treatment plants would be virtually guaranteed not to exist in an anarchical non-society society.

Giving people at large the benefit of the doubt about an issue they have repeatedly shown to fuck up for centuries is silly. And sewage treatment plants require centralization to be built and maintained.

Theres a steep irony in someone doing government controlled work idealizing a system where the work they do would likely not exist. Who exactly would be mandating/funding the existence, operation, or regular testing of a sewage plant in an anarchist society?

Society is poorly designed in the general sense, sure. It could be vastly improved and people could have more liberty wrt a lot of things. But left to their own devices people on average would not choose to mandate water treatment. Even if they somehow did, providing no central system of oversight for making sure that it happens would all but guarantee it doesnt get accomplished.

Its ridiculous how many people take critical aspects of society for granted and assume they would continue to exist in a world where everyone does whatever the fuck they want without any central planning or control. In many places around the world people already dont have access to fresh/clean water for this exact reason…

Look at the libertarian experiments that have all failed spectacularly, like Grafton, NH. Mfs couldnt even agree to not feed the bears or dispose of their trash appropriately. And that doesnt require some massive infrastructure project to accomplish. The greater good often necessitates protecting people at large from their own stupidity, otherwise your liberties are quickly diminished by your neighbor’s negligence