> a world where people dump hazardous waste into rivers to save money
That mostly comes down to insufficient education, greed and lack of immediate consequences.
Letting a live snake roam free is entirely different in that an uneducated man would understand the risk, there is no upside and there is a possibility for immediate consequence.
But letting the snakes go is even easier. Use the example of people littering instead of using a trash can, or not flushing public toilets, if you need a demonstration of how people can't be bothered with even simple tasks.
Most people aren't worried their litter will literally come back to bite them. Were the snake breeders really unconcerned that dumping a bunch of snakes out the back window wouldn't have consequences?
They were breeding poisonous snakes in a land where those snakes already live in the wild, I doubt they were worried about having a few more of those snakes out there.
These breeders were trying to scam a government program so they didn't exactly have the highest scruples, expecting them to do anything to aid society is probably too much to expect.
That mostly comes down to insufficient education, greed and lack of immediate consequences.
Letting a live snake roam free is entirely different in that an uneducated man would understand the risk, there is no upside and there is a possibility for immediate consequence.