Wonder what that carbon footprint is?
Posted on 06/27/2012 2:43:30 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Portland Puts New Twist on Trash Pickup City Creates Buzz as It Cuts Collection To Every 2 Weeks, Stresses Composting By JOEL MILLMAN
PORTLAND, Ore.—The largest city in the state that four decades ago pioneered five-cent deposits on beverage containers is advocating a new approach to garbage collection that has some U.S. communities taking notice.
In a first for any large American municipality, Portland last fall abolished weekly trash pickups, switching to once every two weeks. At the same time, it increased collection of "green" waste—lawn cuttings and other backyard debris mixed in with compostable food scraps—to once a week.
By picking up unsorted trash less often, Portland wants to divert waste from landfills and churn this leafy city's considerable volume of vegetation into compost.
In the first quarter of 2012, Portland collected just under 13,000 tons of residential garbage, down from 23,000 tons during the year-earlier period. Counted in garbage truckloads, that's 1,800 fewer per quarter, or 25 fewer truckloads daily.
Volume to the landfill is down 44%. "It's just a remarkable decrease," says Bruce Walker, solid waste manager for Portland's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Compost collection is nearly three times what the city expected, he adds.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Our county will not even pick up recycle stuff. All cans, glass, plastic and paper just get thrown away. You can, if you want to drive all the way to the land fill and put it in the recycle there, do it. But, they will not pick it up or give us drop off sites within the county.
I lived in Germany for sixteen years. They basically do the same thing. The chief problem was that if you had a vacation planned....you really had to have a cooperative neighbor who would tote your “right” trash bin out to be picked up. You had to track this week by week, and not screw up. The worst pain was if you guessed wrong....you had two weeks before the next paper pick-up occurred, or three weeks before the compost pick-up occurred.
I can admit that on one occasion after missing the paper-pick-up....I ended up driving around in another town the next day where they had their paper being picked up....and trying to find five or six different bins with still enough room to dump what I had into a totally different bin. This is not what you really want to think about or do...when just coming back from a vacation.
Stories like this make me so glad I can choose from a half dozen different companies and numerous different deals from those companies. I don’t make much trash so I choose biweekly pickup at a lower price.
There’s another company in the area that gives me a trash can and I just put it out when I want the trash picked up and I only pay for the times they pick up.
Just another example of the Left Coast...I know, I live there. Run and destroyed by radical liberals.
The green-thugs who run my town have told us that starting this fall we can only put out 3 bags of trash a-week & must put out a recycling bin with the trash or we get NO trash pick-up at all along with a $10 fine.
Stinklandia
As someone who lived out in the country when growing up and seeing pop bottles all over the side of the road I have no problem with this. Wish my state did it. I always had to take a bag out and collect the bottles before cutting the grass along side the field. People are slobs.
I was in Michigan recently at a friends house and was going to throw away the bottle in the trash and she said no hold on I take those back to the store for a refund..no big deal.
Everything we did was excessive according to the Germans. Our about 20 inch TV was too large, having a dryer was not necessary. why do you need a microwave..Weird mentality.
When I was a kid we would go out collecting bottles and turn them in for the deposit. Great way to get ice cream money.
I don’t mind the bottle returns. I usually end up giving the bottles to local youngsters for helping me out with things.
I live in the Portlandia burbs and thankfully, our trash pick up remains on a normal schedule (at least for now). The Portlanders that I’ve talked to are not happy with the current compost/trash pick up. The trash bins are small and they fill up quickly. Portland is having a problem with people putting trash (namely used diapers) into the recycling because they don’t have room in the trash can.
Cue Limbaugh [in little boy's voice,] "Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a municipal waste watcher."
Heh.
I live out in the country (in Virginia) and we have no bottle deposit law. There are some pop bottles, but the bigger problem is glass beer bottles. That won't be fixed until laws against open containers are repealed.
My old garbage company sold out to a company that recycles (Citrus Co, Fl) so now I am having a big blue bin & pickup once a week. I had quit recycling awhile ago as I had to pack everything in my car & cart it 6 miles to the nearest recyle bins. Sometimes I think its more a pain than worth the trouble.
Around here, people set up roadside bottle and can targets on the roads leaving the speedway. Its just one more free market way of making a buck on race weekend. You don’t lug around a bunch of floor chimes and he makes a buck.
I saw one a couple of weeks ago where the guy had a target set up and was grilling hot dogs as prizes for bullseyes.
Rats.
My commment at wsj: The insidious pathology that is the green disease needs to be walled off, and kept out of your communities. Leave it to Portland, SF, or Vermont.
One of the (relatively few) benefits of living in a mobile home park is there is no room for the recycling bins. So we get an exemption on that. If I lived elsewhere and anyone from the city put me under the edicts you are I would kill them.
Yeah, those too. Got my a** chewed out when I did not check for bottles first and ran over one and punctured the rear tractor tire (read farm tractor $$) and all the calcium leaked out...Dad was not happy.
I can never understand people..they would never throw their junk out on a nice residential street but have no problem throwing it out in the country..could never understand that.
Wait just a minute. Since when is garbage collection of lawn clippings green? Just leave the clippings on the lawn and they will provide green fertilizer, geez.
Out here, there’s no recycling. There used to be a recycle place that would take anything from cans to ovens to cars to junk but it wasn’t profitable so it closed. We used to have a couple of can places but those closed, too. I think the closest can place is nearly two hours away so my cans go into the garbage can.
I remember back in the 60’s in southern CA, most homes had a concrete incinerater in the back yard for trash.
I’ve never used my recycling-bin, and I suspect most of us in town have not, which is why the town is forcing us to now. I’ll throw in 3 or 4 items in the recycling-bin & still put the rest of my stuff in bags.
“every week, residents put out a large container that contains their yard waste mixed with food scraps they collect during the week in a smaller, city-issued pail many store under the kitchen “
A family that can fill up a ‘large’ container every week with waste food is definitely on EBT... and liberal as all get-out. it would take me two months to get a gallon of waste food.
Obviously it’s advantageous to sort compostibles at the source but these proportions are insane, and unhealthy.
The counts of rats and racoons have increased dramatically.
Pray for America
This was the tipping point that got us to move out of Portland. Trust me when I say that Portland is NOT a good place to live or visit.
. . . where young people go to retire.”
Wonder what that carbon footprint is?
yep, my sister’s friend lives there. She just visited last week and I asked her how the organic chickens are doing and if they had their names (episode from Portlania). To her all this is perfectly normal.
So I asked “So you like the government telling you what you can and cannot do with your garbage”?
“Well” she replied. “They have good intentions”.
I had another scotch........
I was just there. Didn’t spend much time in Portland itself, but on our last night there, I decided to take my son out for a nice dinner at a well-reviewed southern restaurant (yes, southern food, including sweet tra) called Screen Door. The food was very good, but that memory will pretty much be forever tarnished by the two flamboyantly gay men sitting at the bar who couldn’t keep their hands off of each other, as well as a female member of the wait staff with full facial hair trying to fit in as a man. Disgusting.
Will they cut the trash pickup fee in half?
Good restaurants in Portland. Evo, Le Pigeon, Tastee and Sons—and Little Bird which I haven’t tried yet. I will now add Screen Door.
I like the style. In NYC, to get that quality of cuisine, you would need to go to a white-tablecloth place and drop your whole paycheck. In Portland, you sit at a long communal table or at a counter with the chef right behind the counter making the food. Small plates at Evo, more conventional servings at Le Pigeon where Gabriel Rucker is talented with a capital T.
The sushi at Subaro’s is strange and complicated and wonderful, although it’s now probably glowing faintly when they turn the lights out.
I love Portland. It’s a city, yet it is so different from all things New York.
Usually the raccoons eat the chickens. That’s right in the city. Who knows what goes on past the city limits.
My son wants to play football for the Ducks, so I’ve told him that I’ll move out there if he gets a scholarship. We went to football camp at the U of O last week.
Good luck to him. I don’t think you’ll be sorry if you move there. I’ve never spoken to anyone who wants to leave once they get there.
Rats reign in Portland!
If I took recycle to the local county dump, it would be about a 40 mile round trip. We used to recycle when we lived in WA state. But here they apparently don’t care. They have a large section of land to use as a dump and are just happy with doing that I guess.
Southern Oregon is a great place to live. A FReeper might be more at home on the Springfield side of town - as compared to Medford.
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