Settling

[pasithea]

Finally beginning to get enough stuff unpacked that it's starting to feel like home instead of a weird vacation.

On Saturday we met up with some of the guys off BAF and they helped us move the washer up the hill. As Stacey had predicted, it actually only took four people. We loaded it onto the cart, strapped it down, and hauled it up without incident. There are still a good number of plastic bins under the tarp down at the bottom. Trying to unpack as we move stuff up so that it never gets too cluttered. As we're unpacking, I'm finding a lot more stuff that I'm willing to freecycle. It's amazing how weighted down one's life gets with junk.

I wish there were more opportunities in life to have a place like in front of my apartment where I can just put up a sign that says 'free stuff' and let people take things they want or need. Freecycle is a nice step but it still requires an outlay of time and effort for the transaction and it requires transportation and such. If you're giving up large expensive items like furniture and computers, that's alright but if it's a few toys or something smaller, then the value of freecycle drops way off.

On the other hand, you can't simply have a place where people can just drop off things other people may want as there are plenty of people who will abuse the spirit of it. Even an event like a 'free exchange day' where you require the owner of the items to stay with it would invite a few to abuse the situation. I suppose most people can have a garage sale and simply sell things cheap enough to get rid of most everything that they want and it was merely being an apartment dweller and now living in a very remote location that cause it to be a problem for me.


Related to all this, I saw an interesting article about chipped waste bins in the UK.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255565/Spy-chips-hidden-2-5-million-dustbins-council-snoopers-plan-pay-throw-tax.html

I think it's kind of an interesting idea but I'm not sure about the implementation. I like the idea of people who contribute the most waste having to pay more but I'm skeptical that weight is the right way to go about it. For a start, if implemented, the city should also supply adequate recycling services for all recyclables. The person who reads the daily paper should not be charged more than the person tossing disposable diapers simply because the city doesn't provide paper recycling. Nor should the person who eats lots of fresh vegetables and cuts off skins and bad spots and such be charged more than the one who tosses the empty trays of TV dinners simply because there is no composting bin. Or fat people vs thin because there's no cloth recycling and their clothing is larger and therefor heavier. If properly separated, there's actually very little that can't be recycled. Though more stringent laws about excess packaging would also be nice.

Anyhow. I've gone on quite a ramble.

Comments

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

The real problem with charging for garbage pickup by weight is what's to stop an unscrupulous neighbor from sneaking his garbage to someone else's bins?

The city of Vista had an excellent recycling program. In addition to the regular garbage bin, residents were provided with a bin just for glass, plastics and paper. They would also pick up yard waste, though you had to supply your own cans. I'm not sure how environmentally friendly the program was, since it required 3 separate exhaust-spewing garbage trucks to pick everything up.

Here in rural Nebraska, there's no recycling service. When I first got here, it made me crazy having to throw bottles and cans in the regular trash. At least we have kitchen scrap recycling (i.e., goats).

[centauress.livejournal.com]

They eventually added a garbage truck with multiple compartments. If you think about it, though, three trucks were still better than needing three trucks to split up the route of one truck due to how full it would get.

However, yes, that's why our former apartment building has a security camera trained on the dumpsters...

Can't help you with Nebraska. They make money off of being non-environmentally-friendly.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Not sure the number of trucks is quite that much of a problem. If there are only three trucks picking up trash and recycling, that's better than one truck picking up trash and a few people hauling small amounts of recycling in their individual vehicles so they can get 50 cents in return value. The result of that situation is less materials recycled for a greater investment of fuel. I think also it would just break down into the trucks doing slightly longer routes than they presently do because the same amount of waste is outbound and the trucks have the same capacity so you just shuffle routes around so that a few trucks follow the same routes. The routes are longer because you're dividing the load but it's probably not more than an additional 10% outlay of resources. Definitely not doubling the effort.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

I used to save up cans and bottles to cash in, but when I brought an entire trunk full of cans to the recycling center and they only gave me $5, I gave up and just started tossing them in the recycle bin.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I've told you about this before, but just in case I haven't: I love the way we do trash pickup here in Leuven. There are only three sorts of bags that the trash service will pick up: brown bags for trash, blue bags for recyclables and green bags for compost, all specially marked and available for purchase at any grocery store. Blue and green bags are enormous, and cost two euros for a roll of twenty; brown bags are smaller, and cost twenty euros for a roll of ten. If someone attempts to cheat and put nonrecyclables in a blue or green bag, the trash service slaps a red sticker on and leaves it there for the culprit to fix him/herself (the blue and green bags are translucent). Thus, you only pay for the volume of trash you generate, and if you generate more recycling/compostables than you do landfill trash, you pass the savings on to yourself.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Ah. that sounds like a great solution to the issue. Simple, no fines/threats/intimidation/etc and it even allows for community to effortlessly help someone else with their rubbish if needed without involving anyone else. very cool.