Too Much Garbage
Yet another study taking place. This time it's about garbage.
I'm surprised Eureka and the county at large hasn't diverted at least half of the waste we send to landfills. But, I guess if you look at the actual dumping operation at Eureka City Garbage, you see a lot of stuff being thrown out that doesn't need to be.
Sunday I was in there and saw a trailer full of old lumber being dumped. That could have been thrown in with the green waste, which ends up being chipped up. Maybe it was treated or had paint on it? Treated or painted wood doesn't go with green waste.
I still say they ought to try doing what they did years ago:
They used to have two or three guys going through the dumped trash and removing recyclabes. Those same people got to turn in the bottles and cans for trash.
Seems to me they could extend that and have them remove cardboard, lumber and all the rest, hopefully screening it when it comes in so it doesn't get dumped in the first place, like the lumber I saw getting dumped on Sunday.
One thing I don't want to see, as I've said before here, is trash pick up being made mandatory. That's not going to solve the trash or diversion problem and will just be one more thing you have to pay for.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 6:24 AM
13 comments
13 Comments:
"They used to have two or three guys going through the dumped trash and removing recyclabes. Those same people got to turn in the bottles and cans for trash." - sounds like a good idea, but I'm afraid that it's illegal. That's why we need to give more money to the police department to keep the likes of tad out of our garbage. Nevermind the armed robberies of people's homes because of the insane prohibition against marijuana. We can't have people just loitering outside of the workplace, not indoors or being "served" by a society-manager.
"sounds like a good idea, but I'm afraid that it's illegal. That's why we need to give more money to the police department to keep the likes of tad out of our garbage.".
Why would it be illegal for City Garbage to hire guys to sort through the trash like they used to do. Those guys worked for City Garbage, I believe. At least they did some of the time.
I knew one of them from my days working at juvenile hall. He said he made pretty good money doing it, but I didn't ask him if they got paid wages in addition to whatever they found.
I suppose someone could get arrested for going around and picking through other poeple's trash, but I wasn't aware the police were bothering with that. I've never seen anyone arrested for it.
Since recycling has become a dogmatic gospel in the environazi religion we are urged to overlook the fact that recycled material is a commodity. The prices of commodoties fluctuate wildly and their forced inclusion into manufactured items can significantly drive up costs. The costs of separating and collecting discarded material is also usually concealed in the fees (taxes) imposed. Let's not kid ourselves. The fees for forced collection are a tax pure and simple.
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=520
speaking of garbage, did you see buhne tribune crowing over his hit counter?
this is such bullshit, you can see just by hitting reload how the counter goes up for every hit, while freds counter only goes up on your first visit and reloads dont.
theres a difference between hits and visits. most net advertisers look at visits, since its easy to set up your computer to keep reloading the same page over and over to inflate the stats. in other words, fred probably has more real visits then buhne since hits are usually 3 or 4 times as many as actual visits.
id tell buhne this himself but his highness is in hiding and wont let comments in, unlike friendly fred who doesn't seem to have such a brain hemmorage over free speech.
speaking of garbage, did you see buhne tribune crowing over his hit counter?
this is such bullshit, you can see just by hitting reload how the counter goes up for every hit, while freds counter only goes up on your first visit and reloads dont.
theres a difference between hits and visits. most net advertisers look at visits, since its easy to set up your computer to keep reloading the same page over and over to inflate the stats. in other words, fred probably has more real visits then buhne since hits are usually 3 or 4 times as many as actual visits.
id tell buhne this himself but his highness is in hiding and wont let comments in, unlike friendly fred who doesn't seem to have such a brain hemmorage over free speech.
Why should a blogger be required to allow comments? You can always email comments directly the the capt., or start your own blog.
You're demanding some sort of space on someone else's privately owned blog.
Sorry, you got nothing coming.
who said anything about required? im just calling buhne on the mat for claiming to be something hes not, and i have to do it here since buhne is too much of a pussy to let in some conflicting opinions. fred is the real leader of local blogs and if buhne ran with real numbers, vists not hits, we would all know for sure. i bet fred has 5,000 more visits, since hes been around longer and has more participation.
I used to have an office in Old Town. there was a regular group of guys who had their shopping carts and went around getting cans and bottles from the dumpsters. They worked harder than most anyone I knew. really had a work ethic. It was their own niche, and must have been a choice of sorts, since they seemed happy, and wouldn't have been if they were in a suit and sitting at a desk. Any employer would kill for that kind of job dedication, patience and diligence.
Somebody put them out of business though, all the dumpsters suddenly sprouted locks.
Always seemed unfair to me.
Fred's right, salvage was always a great thing at the dump. The Arcata Recycling Center sought to institutionalize that spirit, but bureaucratizing a thing always kills it.
"all the dumpsters suddenly sprouted locks.".
I suspect the locks were added more to keep riff- raff from dumping their trash in the dumpsters rather than keeping recyclers out.
That's a big problem with leaving dumpsters unlocked: People who don't want to pay for garbage pick up drive around, find a dumpster and dump their garbage in a dumpster- for free.
It can get pretty extreme: I have a friend who's a contractor. Years ago he was going to do a roofing job on California Street, first block south of Wabash in Eureka.
He had a dumpster- one of the big ones- dropped of in front of the house the day before work was to start. He shows up the next day and the dumpster was packed full of furniture and other household goods. They filled it up overnight.
What did he do? Took everything out and left it there. Said he, "It's not my stuff and not my responsibility...".
Funny thing was, when he told me the story, I actually remembered seeing that dumpster all filled up. I drove by there that day and noticed it. I figured someone was moving out of one of the houses there and thought that was a unique way to avoid taking everything with you; Just throw it away.
yeah, you're right, that was a major reason for the locks. I remember it being a problem - that story is pretty funny! Not to the contractor, though!
Yeah, he was pissed, or so he expressed when he told me the story. I don't believe I knew him at the time this happened.
I wondered who did it? It had to have been someone in the neighborhood. It might even have been multiple persons cause it wasn't something that would go unnoticed. That was a LOT of stuff they loaded in there.
It would also be interesting to see what happened to all the stuff he removed from the bin and left in the neighborhood. Did the people that fill up the dumpster go get their stuff and dump it somewhere else?
or did other people salvage it?
I doubt they came back.
For an interesting read that touches on some of these issues, check out "The Art & Science of Dumpster Diving" by John Hoffman (Amazon.com link).
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