Little Things that Matter
I just had an interesting discussion with a dear friend-someone I like and respect but who has a very different political perspective and viewpoint than mine. He was in his office listening to a conservative talk show host when I barged in and just started talking. He’s never seemed to mind my audacious interruptions so I never hesitate to bother him when I feel the need to talk/argue/contemplate… The topic for the morning was Detroit and financial problems that plague the motor city. Going through a bankruptcy right now, it is the biggest municipal default in our nation’s history and bound to complicate a lot of lives. Retired municipal employees who waiting to hear how their pensions will be affected, vendors and bond holders who are owed money, property owners who wonder how the city’s services will be affected, and current employees waiting for the axe to fall. Messy. Very messy.
This is the type of financial debacle that haunts the American news-scape. It seems like we are treated to a new and more spectacular failure of government or business every day.
I am trying to understand how we can be so wrong in our planning, so blind to our mismanagement, and so naïve in our faith in the honesty and competence of our fellow man? Given these weaknesses I begin to lose faith. My friend has lost his. He is convinced that, given the flaws in the system and in the human character, that there is no hope. I believe he is wrong but we require reevaluation, not of the vast, complex and interconnected machine of our world but, rather, of the small steps and building blocks of the systems and practices. We need to look at the tiny acts of everyday people in our society-because they are the keys to the problems.
Focusing on one problem and dissecting that problem into its smallest parts, I believe, will see answers to the great issues evolve from the tiny actions. I commence to ramble.
Sunday night the community prepares for the garbage collection on Monday morning. Each home gathers its waste and piles it at the curb where it sits waiting for the maw of the packer truck in the morning light. People drag their plastic thirty gallon pails of trash, bags full of leaves, lengths of wood, old toys and bicycles, etc out to the spot where a huge truck with a crew of three men will come and stop and dump the trash and fling the lids of the pails and pull away to the next stop. A scene as American as apple pie. Except it isn’t. It is as human as…well, I don’t know…?? It is a scene you can see in Germany, or England, or many other places. But it isn’t exactly the same everywhere. In some places there is no trash pick-up at all and in some places, like Germany, it is very different. In Germany there will only be one “bin” awaiting the garbage truck. That is all that a household is allowed to put out-one! If you put out more than one, or any loose rubbish, it will not be picked up and you will be issued a ticket for violating the regulations. If you put your junk out before a certain time of day you will get a violation as well. They are very serious about garbage in Germany, but everyone buys into the concept of limitations on garbage. These limitations have resulted in very serious changes in the way things are packaged. Packaging becomes trash. Trash must be disposed of and since it is going to cost you money to get rid of extra (more than one bin’s worth) people won’t buy things with a lot of packaging. Bottles and cans are not trash in Germany. No one would dispose of them in their trash. They are too bulky and, besides, if you put them in your trash you will get a violation! No, you bring them to the recycling bins at the supermarket when you go to shop. Same goes for cardboard and paper, into the bin. Compare this to my town trash pick-up.
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four or five. I walk my dog and regularly see homes with multiple bins. There are also some houses that pile furniture and bicycles and toys and old wood cut into lengths and boxes full of other trash…I could go on. The collection team will more than likely just chuck it into the packer truck. Sometimes they will leave it. No one ever gets a citation even though the pile of junk might lie out at the curb for a week or two. Eventually it disappears. I suspect there are some homes that actually do clean-ups at other properties and dispose of the trash in our town’s trash pick-up. It is a business. We have recycling in our town, which means on one day the truck (with the same crew of three) picks up cans and bottles and on another they pick up the paper and cardboard along the same routes as the regular trash pick-up. We even have a “bulk pick-up” every month or so for the express purpose of helping rid households of large items like hot water heaters and furniture. All of this service paid for by taxes. The same taxes that go for road repair, schools, and all the other municipal services we expect.
This system works because people have money to pay for it but it is not a good system. I am positive there is/was a similar trash collection scenario in Detroit. Ask the people in Detroit if they would have taken a different path with regard to their garbage if they knew it could have helped avoid the stink they are in now? I believe they would have gladly moderated the system. Here is how. Look at the small steps that build this system into the monster that it has become.
First, there is no incentive to be conservative in our consumption (read: waste). Why bother restricting our waste if the truck/crew will pick it all up regardless of how many cans we put out?
If there are no bins for glass, paper and metal at the supermarket who cares? Of course we must pay to have them picked up but who is considering the cost of those additional pick-ups? We have to go to the store anyway so why can’t we do double duty and recycle at the same time we shop?
If we continue to think that this waste disposal is free than we will not think about the useless plastic/paper/cardboard packaging that we regularly accept on everything we purchase. If we don’t think about it and just continue to accept bulky, wasteful packaging, then I assure you the manufacturers will not give it too much thought either.
There is no reward for performance anywhere in this system. This is how the system will work better.
Recycling should be convenient and dropping off recycling should be as regular as shopping for food-put the bins outside the grocery stores and department stores. Stop the deposit bottle laws and institute recycling laws. Enforce them.
A single house should have pick up of one container each week of trash. Institute rules about overages and enforce them. It will not take long for people to figure out how to pare down on their waste and that will trickle up to the manufactures and plastic bag makers and they will get the hint fast enough. Toys, furniture, bar-b-ques will also be recycled/sold/repurposed more regularly. Make it easy to make reasonable arrangements to dispose of totally unwanted items but it should not be free! If there is no cost to disposing of something the system will not work.
Bulk clean up should be the business of commercial carting companies. They charge for dumpsters and pick-ups because they know the real worth of the service. Appliance disposal should accompany appliance purchase. Commercial carting companies and appliance dealers are in business and they pay taxes and employ people who pay taxes and buy homes. Government should get out of the trash business wherever possible.
Make and enforce very strict litter and dumping laws. This should go without saying but I’m saying it anyway. Enforcement is crucial.
I think that we (and the people of Detroit) should consider all of our systems more closely. We have been living a cushy life without regard for the realities of the economic impact of the small things/actions that make up the systems we rely on in our daily life.
Next time: think about Drinking Water!
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