Recycling Task Force meeting on Friday

Just got this reminder from from the RTF:

Recycling Task Force Meeting
Friday, November 7th, 4:30-6:30 pm
FNSB Assembly Chambers

The topic of tomorrow's meeting will be LOGISTICS - Item 4 from the following list identified during previous RTF meetings:

The following five categories were identified by the RTF as specific areas for the RTF to make recommendations:

• Coordinate Stakeholders
  
• School District
  
• Borough Government
  
• Military
  
• City Government
  
• Commercial and Private Industry
  
• State Government
  
• Federal Government
  
• Recycling Task Force
  

Recyclable Materials

• Glass
  
• Paper
  
• Tires
  
• Electronic
  
• Plastic
  
• Aluminum
  
• Compost
  
• Other metals
  

Education/Communication

• Education
  
• Public Will
  
• Packaging
  
• Transportation
  
• Philosophy
  

Logistics

• Collections
  
• Bailer
  
• Labor
  
• Location/Recyling Center
  
• Transportation
  
• Transfer Sites
  

Business Plan

• Financial Incentives
  
• Marketing Products
  
• Legislative Action
  

Logistics: in other words, How-To.

As promised: black slate countertop photo

Finally got a photo of this so you can see what a recycled pool table looks like when installed in a kitchen:

Plastic bag avalanche in the kitchen

I've been getting sick of the huge mounds of plastic shopping bags that pile up in the space between our refrigerator and our kitchen counter. We have canvas tote bags, of course, and carry them around in the car or have them hanging from the kitchen door handle, but that doesn't always mean that we remember to grab them when we go in to the store to do our shopping. Sometimes, our groceries end up in plastic bags. (Bad habits are hard to break, and grocery stores tend to reinforce this particular bad habit--the clerks won't look at you like you're an absent-minded loon if you don't bring a shopping bag to the counter with you. In fact, they often seem to be in a race to stuff those food items into plastic faster than you can haul out your own bag or even say, "Hey, I don't need that--")

So, what to do with all those bags? Well, some of them we use for garbage bags, but that's not many, and the pile builds up faster than we can keep up. Today I had the brilliant idea of knitting a tote bag out of them. Then I thought to myself, "Well, surely someone's thought of this before." So I looked it up on Google. Hoo boy. Bazillions of how-tos on making yarn and knitting with plastic home-made yarn. Here's a particularly nice explanation on making the yarn, from a blog called Gooseflesh. Helle Jorgensen, the writer, is a wonderfully talented sculptor and knitter.

My one concern with using plastic bags is the possibility of toxic residues. Of course, this is a problem with many plastics. Anchorage writer and knitter Catherine Hollingsworth, who writes the column Two Sticks for the Anchorage Daily News, suggests using gloves while making the yarn, and cleaning up your needles with rubbing alcohol.

(cross-posted on Green Knitters)

2007 in review

Once again, it is time to reflect on the previous year. This makes my 335th post on this blog, which means I'm averaging far less than a post a day, which is what I'd hoped to do when I started it up, but hey, I can't always be inspired. So, as Adam Meahan Olfahrt would say, Onward!

January

In January of 2007 I presented, for the first time, the Mike Kelly Award as a special Publisher's Pick at the Republic's 8th Birthday Bash. David James, also known as Dr. Feelgood, was the lucky winner of this dubious recognition for an article providing a valuable lesson in civics, science, or sex advice (or all three).

The Republic moved from the Old Post Office Espresso Publishing House & Art Gallery (now known as the Old Post Office Ester Library Annex) and the Trial Run to the Clubhouse, across the street and hidden behind the bar, there to start a large and disorganized office mess with dogs, kids, temporary guests, a refrigerator and range, and a VERY comfortable couch.

February

The fourth edition of the Local Et Cetera came out.

Don Young, after spouting a false quote supposedly by Abraham Lincoln that advocated arresting, exiling, or hanging those who damage military morale in wartime, refused to recant after his error was pointed out to him. Lincoln actually advocated strong limits on the power of the president.

"Scrotum" got put on the elementary school censorship list by those who wish to protect us from knowledge of our body parts.

The municipality of Largo, Florida, distinguished itself as a city of bigots, and Alaska gained headway in the discrimination spotlight with the phenomenally obnoxious HJR 9, introduced February 12, 2007, that would deny employee benefits of any sort at any level of government to same-sex OR unmarried couples, AND prevent civil unions. Bastards.

March

Brutus, our Mazda truck, went up in large, explosive, and very noisy flames, burning to a crisp in our driveway and causing rather a bit of excitement in our household.

The Republic was positively reviewed in the Utne Reader!

April

The library held its third Lallapalooza & Book Bash and raised better than $6,000.

Fred Dyson declared, in public no less, and with no apparent shame, that "government has the right to decide which relationships are forbidden and which are approved." And stunningly, the Libertarian party said absolutely nothing about this. So much for standing by their moral principles.

The Republic won awards again at the Alaska Press Club conference, even though we weren't there to stomp and whoop loudly.

The Supreme Court decided that half of the population is worth no more than their reproductive organs, and that we (women) are not mature enough to handle troublesome emotions such as regret, and therefore the menfolk of the reactionary rightwing kind are obligated to make all our most personal decisions for us. Again, I say, with feeling, "Bastards!"

We bought our green Honda Element.

May

The Cartoon North exhibit catalog was printed.

June

Got informally threatened with lawyers by the News-Miner for an article by Dru Heskin on the Newspapers in Education program. Although the newspapers in the dumpster story was mostly correct, there were problems (which I blush to admit I should have spotted). I didn't doublecheck thoroughly enough. So I published a correction and clarification in the next issue. Taught me a good lesson about making sure of all the dots on the i's and crosses on the t's. But ouch.

Don Young (o, that marvelous inspiration for editorial cartoons!) got conked by a coconut of his own pitching.

July

I hosted the 85th Carnival of the Green.

The DC contingent of Alaska's Corrupt Bastards Club started to get their comeuppance.

August

The News-Miner redesigned their paper and started copying, in certain respects, the Republic.

We poured the library gazebo foundation.

We held the Li-Berry Pie Throwdown and Music Festival, and boy was it fun!

September

Not much happened (at least that I wrote about), except for a Friday the Thirteenth, and Tim Easton was briefly back in town.

October

I started carrying around Alaskans for Clean Elections petitions.

Fairbanks discovered just how awkward it can get when the city doesn't use Instant Runoff Voting. Not to mention pricey.

The office refrigerator began barking. I kid you not. And it hasn't stopped yet. Ask me why I'm a nutcase. Ask me.

There was a humongous and hilarious Dumpster-diving fuss, sparked by Charlie Rex's second attempt to ban Dumpster diving. Major turnout by the local recyclers. This time the News-Miner got it right.

November

We finally got our water (and our septic line) running again!

I started begging for short-term, interest-free loans to help with printing Jamie Smith's books. Am still working on it.

I found out that Hans Klint died.

Dumpster diving was saved!

December

Got Like A Tree to the Soil off to the printer (for my day job).

Started working on John Haines' CD.

The United States got booed in Bali during the climate change convention.

Wolves started eating dogs in Fairbanks and Anchorage.

I got Mired in the Health Care Morass off to the printer!


And that was our year, folks!

Recycling rescued once again!

The Dumpster Diving Ruckus, brought to a frothy boil by Charlie Rex for the second time (didn't he learn anything from the reaction the first time?), was once again proof of just how entertaining borough assembly meetings can be. There was one creepy episode, when a self-proclaimed prophet started talking about how his master Yahweh was going to kill the assembly members who were trying to take this opportunity from him and his kids. Otherwise, though, it was very interesting. There were a ton of well-spoken people and some very good suggestions, and over and over the point was made that junk stockpiling is not going to be stopped by preventing recycling via dumpster diving.

Nobody seemed to think that identity theft was an issue the borough should concern itself with in this way, and that people should know better than to toss their private info in a public place in the first place. One person even pointed out that the presence of scavengers at the transfer sites helped remind people that their trash becomes public after they throw it away, and thus acts as a deterrent to unthinking revelation of identity details. Several people talked about the shredders (in working condition!) that they'd found at the recycle platforms or in the dumpsters (a nice little irony).

Many people spoke of how much dumpster divers were removing from the waste stream and thereby saving the borough loads of money. One fellow talked about the business he had making cans from recycled metals. He's going to be able to retire on it.

A few people talked about the junk in their neighbors' yards, and pointed out that the borough wasn't willing or able to do anything about them, and that the dumpster-diving ban wouldn't do anything to change that situation. Junk piles and hoarding will happen, they pointed out, whether people take things from the dumpster or no, and also, one doesn't ordinarily find old cars and trucks in dumpsters.

The News-Miner seems to have its head on straight about this issue this time, and Chris Eschelman, who's been covering it for them, has done a good job in the articles I've seen (although his first sentence in the latest bugs me--"a vocal mob"?). Front page news above the fold in one of them! Lots of Esteroids got quoted, but there was also a lot of support from all over the borough for recycling.

Among the practical suggestions made were:

1. More recycle platforms: have 'em at every transfer site. This makes a ton of sense to me. Ester's probably got a higher per capita population of recyclers than anywhere around here except maybe Goldstream or Two Rivers. Yet, because our population is lower than, say, Chena Pump, we don't have a recycle platform. Whose bright idea was that? If you want to encourage recycling rather than diving, make it easy!
2. Better signage: inform people where stuff might be placed, warn of the risks of diving and the big trucks, etc.
3. Bigger recycle platforms with better spaces for putting things, perhaps a table or something for clothes.
4. Change the time of trash pickup from a high-traffic time (the middle of the day) to a night pickup or early morning, or close the transfer site for an hour while the trash is being hauled away--and post the time so that people can time their recycling pickup or dropoff accordingly.
5. Reconfigure the arrangement of the dumpsters so that drivers can more easily maneuver and thus reduce the danger to pedestrians.

A few people objected to the term "dumpster diving", but I like it, myself. There's an element of humor in it.

At the last, even Rex voted against his own proposal. The alternative proposal was also voted down. Good for the assembly.

Redux addenda

Another problem, which is a prime motivator for Rex, if I understood the News-Miner article correctly, is that people could get hurt whilst mucking around in a Dumpster. The truck drivers have to worry about people running around the transfer site attempting to get the goodies out before they get hauled off. One concern Rex had voiced the last time this went around was worry that somebody sleeping in a Dumpster could get killed when the trucks scoop up the container. That, of course, is a problem of not having sufficient places for homeless people, or a way to engage their trust enough so that they will come to the places that are available. Unfortunately, the only one available is on a religious mission, which can be a problem for some people, homeless or not, and that one's been in financial trouble lately. Fortunately, it's still operating.

Dumpster Diving Ruckus Redux

and once again, rumor has it that it appears to be driven by a McMansion complex off Chena Pump Road, the developer of same having had the misfortune to fail to note the neighbor's business before he built his little neighborhood of big vinyl boxes. (Said neighbor runs a junkyard/recycling shop.) Charlie Rex, who has been behind this sort of thing before, is trying to make it illegal (or at least fineable) to dive in borough dumpsters, because this apparently has something to do with people piling stuff in their yards and selling it later. Or simply hoarding it. Maybe.

Hoarding is a serious mental problem, and when one's piles of stuff (or one's eighty-seven cats or four hundred dogs) start to stink or affect health and welfare of people and animals, THEN there's a real problem. But there seems to be no good way, legally, to deal with it before it gets out of control. (Perhaps I'm wrong on this--but hoarding as a symptom of a mental disease and sloppy storage of items on one's property are two different matters, and should be dealt with in different and appropriate ways.)

Rex also brings up the bogeyman of identity theft. I say, if you're concerned about people possibly pawing through your trash in a public dumpster (where you chose to toss that sensitive information), then maybe you should get a shredder and shred it first. Or perhaps a burn barrel, or a wood stove, and you can get a few BTUs out of it. People can steal your identity papers anywhere along the dumpster trail, and that includes the dump. So don't toss them in there in the first place! The News-Miner is right on in their editorial on this.

Rex wants people to rely exclusively on the transfer station recycle platforms, but not all transfer stations HAVE them.

The problem here is that people really really want to have access to recyclable and recycling goods, and aside from the transfer stations, they don't.