Fail.
Tuesday April 02nd 2013, 10:31 pm
Filed under: Politics

Ah my. Our city is starting a pilot program and our neighborhood got made the ones who get to do it. Probably because there is not one member of the city council who lives here.

There will no longer be trash trucks for us. Nope, zip, gone. We’re all such perfect recyclers that we will have recycling and we will have composting and that’s that.

A little compost bucket got dropped off by the front door a few days ago, with a box of biodegradeable liner bags inside. You had to break the lid of the thing to get it to stay upright while trying to put stuff in it, like when peeling a mango with two hands with the bucket needing two more hands to hold it steady and open for the peels . Meat scraps! Those go in too. The bags are to go in the bins that were formerly for yard clippings only and the bucket is intended to stay in our kitchens whether we want them to or not, unless we want squirrels raiding them by day and rats and raccoons by night. (Full or empty, they’re going to smell like food to them.) And no, there are no charcoal filters. (Paging Suburban Correspondent.)

I have an occasional gardener here doing some of the outdoor stuff I with my sun sensitivity absolutely can’t. Mows the lawn, that sort of thing. When he does come, it’s the day before pickup, and now he’s supposed to deal with his work bin having week-old chicken bones in it and the like (says the woman who made chicken broth tonight).

If we want details on the program, do we get a written-out description on the city’s website?

No, we get a video to listen to.

*crickets*

Nope, can’t hear those either. I mean, come on, guys, how hard is it to type out the (insert aggrieved word of your choice here) thing?

And! They want the participants to fill in a survey, and if you do they will give you a $5 gift certificate to…wait for it…Peet’s coffee.

Now, I’m told Peet’s makes great coffee. But we’re Mormons.

The real kicker and the biggest reason this all bugs me in the first place is that anything that really is trash is to be sealed up in a bag and put out in the recycling bin. Which is already way more than full every week, because, y’know, we’re such great recyclers and all; I emailed the city and outlined just exactly what goes in the trash at our house since my colectomy and asked if they really wanted to risk–I mean, have they seen their trucks in action?!–contaminating everything with–that.

So they gave me a second recycling bin to help with the volume issue.

Would the Health Department seriously be okay with this? What this is really about is the city strong-arming the garbage workers’ union they’ve been fighting with.

Tomorrow’s the first day.

One year.

Kicking and screaming all the way.

(And on a more cheerful note, I saw a peregrine falcon hovering at the top of the trees that were cut back from the road as I carpooled and Richard drove to pick up Michelle this evening, and on the way back I saw it again!)


12 Comments so far
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Wow. Someone didn’t think that one through all the way to its logical conclusion.

Comment by Debbi 04.03.13 @ 5:45 am

Obviously no one in on the planning lives with someone with a chronic health condition.

Comment by wildknits 04.03.13 @ 5:51 am

Everything I’ve ever read about composting said never put meat and their by products in a composted! Who thought this through? Maybe that’s the problem! No one thought this through!!! Wishing you luck and maybe more than a little common sense for the folks who make up your rules!!!

Comment by Jody 04.03.13 @ 6:17 am

Good luck. Sorry you have to play guinea pig…

Comment by Pam 04.03.13 @ 7:29 am

Thanks–you reminded me that I have to call the city and ask if they passed the ordinance that says I can have two chickens in my back yard.

Comment by Sherry in Idaho 04.03.13 @ 7:30 am

I’m giggling, only because your two posts are complete foils. Pretty flowers and… refuse.

Call the Health Department, Alison. What happens when a neighborhood cat, rat or possum gets into said stuff?!

Comment by Channon 04.03.13 @ 7:40 am

We do green bin (composting – meat as well as veg matter) and blue bin (recycling) every week. BUT, we also get trash pick up every other week. We couldn’t do just the first part if we didnt have the second part, and we aren’t dealing with medical waste items. You can’t just take away trash pick up – not everything is compostable or recyclable. SOmeone isn’t thinking this all the way through…

Comment by Sandra 04.03.13 @ 8:45 am

We compost all that we can–in the composter in the yard. No problem, except occasional scattering of pineapple cores by squirrels. We recycle all that we can. But meat scraps and other stray bits of trash do go in the trash bin, which is about 1/3 full every week. Although I played earth mother and used cloth diapers (usually sun dried), what do they expect to happen to all of the disposable diapers that people use these days? I also think you should call the health department and ask them what they think about this.

Comment by LauraN 04.03.13 @ 8:51 am

and there seems to be no happy medium either — here in our little village we have to pay EXTRA to get a bin to do recycling and all of the lawn/garden waste goes into the trash bin because they won’t take it AT ALL otherwise

seems there is no end of inability of municipalities to FAIL on the thinking process!

Comment by bev 04.03.13 @ 9:22 am

…And all of the above. Are they waiting to see if any health problems ensue? At least one council member should be in the pilot, where ever he/she lives.

Comment by Don Meyer 04.03.13 @ 9:32 am

We dog owners pick up after our dogs and put what we pick up into the trash. I’m having a tough time imagining putting it anywhere else.

Not to say I believe the plan a good one but there are things at Peet’s I think Mormon could love. Chewy Peps candy; chocolate-dipped biscotti; 18 Rabbits granola. I don’t know how their Dutch cocoa is, but a person could spend $5 there in a flash without spending it on either coffee or tea. (Can you tell how much I like Peet’s?)

Comment by RobinM 04.03.13 @ 4:17 pm

Hmm. We don’t have trash pickup, because we burn what we can, and haul the recyclables to the dump along with the actual trash (metal, crockery) a couple times a year. But last summer there was a burn ban because of the drought, and such a high fire danger. So we made arrangements with a friend to share their container, since their trash volume plus ours didn’t exceed the volume of the dumpster. Probably the trash company wouldn’t approve, but we neglected to ask. It was annoying to have to haul stinky trash bags to town, but it was a solution. Do you have any friends who live in another zone that you could make deposits in their barrel?

Comment by slimsdotter 04.03.13 @ 8:03 pm



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