Waste Management

Waste Management

I know it is a new month and a new year but I’ll be damned if I know what day of the week it is. Wait, I hear the trash truck out front. Must be Thursday. It is 6:00 am and our house is the first stop for the garbage pick-up. I’d like to go out there and give the assholes on the truck a piece of my mind. No, actually I’d like to go to the Waste Management offices and let loose there, verbally, of course! The guys on the truck are just worker bees. It’s the bosses and the politicians who are to blame for this pre-daybreak disturbance.

 

Just for the hell of it I did some research into the noise regulations of Martin county to see what laws are being broken by starting an industrial strength noise in a neighborhood at 6 o’clock in the morning. There are tons of reg’s. Everything from allowable decibel levels and noise crossing a property line to hours of work allowed. These laws apply to individuals, manufacturing establishments, construction operations, birthday parties, etc. This was a not a surprise to me but what was a surprise was that none of it applies to the garbage pick-up operation. This comes under the heading of “except for county authorized waste removal”! So, this monster vehicle with horrible brakes and ear shattering reverberating motor and transmission can do its damnedest as early as it wants to…It can cruise up and down the street at 6:00 am in order to clear the yard waste or crush living room furniture or empty bins of bottles and cans that clatter with the impact of tympani. It can sound its beeping back-up signal-which can be heard as far as the launch pad at Cape Canaveral- and the sleeping residents of the community be damned.

Also ridiculous is the fact that the truck crew consists of two men. One driving and one doing all the picking up. The truck cruises down the street in one direction getting all the cans, etc from that one side and then it cruises back the other way picking up the other side. On days when there is both a trash pick up and a recycle pick up that behemoth comes through four times!  I suppose the company would claim that this is so the picker-upper does not have to cross the path of incoming traffic to grab the cans, and I suppose that may be true BUT, how does the crew that rides the truck up north do it? There are two guys riding the back of the truck there and I presume they have an acceptable safety record. I think safety is not the real issue. I think it is economics. I think an analysis of the operation would show that the additional time, wear and tear on the truck, and gasoline is less than the cost of a second crew member on the back of the truck. I might be wrong but I am pretty sure the discomfort of the community is not a part of the equation.

Trash/garbage is an interesting topic for me. I am not sure why but it fascinates me. I think we make too much trash and waste way too much. I find the name of the hauler used by this community-and many other communities through out the country- to be incongruous. “Waste Management” implies there is a real plan behind its operation and a goal of some sort, which is partially true. Its goal is to make money. Its plan is to make the trash disappear. Aside from that there is no management involved. Judging from the mountains of our landfills there is far too little actual though or management where waste is concerned, and waste management doesn’t begin with the trash truck cruising our streets at 6:00am weekly. It starts with controlling the ungodly amounts of packaging we consume and discard, the plant material we discard so we can have manicured lawns and trees, food we throw away, endless streams of home furnishings, office supplies, toys, clothing, you name it, we consume that all ends up as trash, and so long as it disappears we feel we have managed it. We have not. Perhaps we’re not thinking clearly because we were awakened at 6:00 am by the trash truck on its forth pass through our neighborhood.

Division Street (Aluminum Siding)

I don’t imagine Division Street* was ever “grand”. The structures that line the street are modest homes and a few storefronts. Originally clapboard sided, two storied, simple roof lines and trim. As you head north up Division you will notice that the east side of the street is up-hill while the west is down. On the east the builders fashioned garages cut into the hillside, perhaps poured a slab roof over the excavation and back-filled it. On the west the homes are clinging to the slop and parking is on the street. Either way the small lots push into the street seemingly hanging over it or falling away from it. Trucks and cars screech to a stop and speed away from the traffic lights, the noise slightly echoing off the canyon walls of the buildings. Since Division is partly commercial most of the houses look to be rentals, with two, three or four families in each according to my quick count of the electric meters and the mail boxes. If you are looking for finer, nicer houses they are around the corner and a block away. Big Queen Anne’s with wraparound porches, decorative cornices and gable ends, large garages (carriage houses) out back are decorated to mimic the grand theme of the main house. Their lots are flat or gently sloping. But one thing all of the homes in the neighborhood have in common is vinyl siding. Or aluminum siding and trim.

When I built my home I had no spare dough. I mean I scrimped every which way to put this house together. I suppose that almost everyone struggles with a budget when they build. Back in the 1800’s and early 1900’s when the homes along Division Street were built siding meant wood and wood means painting and maintenance. That was understood back then but Man is a lazy beast and cheap too. He’d do anything to get out of painting or paying someone else to paint that damned siding.  Along comes The 1950’s and aluminum products are all the rage. You’re watching “Have Gun Will Travel” on the black and white R.C.A TV one night and the commercial by Alcoa aluminum tells you that you don’t have to paint that old siding any more! Cover it up with their siding. It’ll look the same as if you’d done a bang up job of painting and you’ll never have to paint again! Then comes the 1960’s and plastic! And you’re watching “Bewitched” on the color, SONY TV one night and commercial by Dow Chemical tells you that you don’t have to paint that old siding any more! Cover it up with their siding…etc.

Almost no one paints an old house any more. Walking down the sidewalk of Division Street my casual survey counts one house out of thirty or forty that has the original wood siding and trim. All the rest have been covered with aluminum or vinyl. In my opinion the one with the paint usually appears to have a weather-worn dignity while the plastic covered homes look cheap and unkempt. The aluminum roofing trim might be flapping at the seams with the original carved cornices and rafter ends peeking out of the gaps in the loosened metal cladding. Outside and inside corners made of metal or plastic look fake and the radical expansion and contraction of the clad siding causes it to pull loose over time. What the manufacturer didn’t tell us was the “baked on finish” on the aluminum  would “chalk” over time and become powdery and dull. That the vinyl would sag in the heat of the sun and ultraviolet rays would cause it to become brittle in just a few years. It will chip easily. Mold and mildew grow easily on the shady side of the building and it takes a pressure cleaning every couple of years to clean it, and even then it still looks dull and cheap. Given the track record of the aluminum and plastic products, painting doesn’t seem to be too high a price to pay for a good looking, nicely sided house any more.

As I mentioned, I built my house on a budget. I wish that budget had included nice, clear cedar siding but it didn’t. I used vinyl. I picked a color that would fade with a modicum of dignity. I tried to install it properly so that it would stay in place and age well. But plastic is plastic and it has developed some cracks and holes where the brittle product has come into contact with my children’s baseballs and other insults. I have to pressure clean the north side every year as it turns a dirty green with mold. Occasionally I need to re-secure a length of trim or siding where it “popped” off of the building because of bad nailing or extreme expansion/contraction. But I did one thing that I am proud of with the vinyl siding on my house, I didn’t put it on the walls anywhere near where people could touch it or get up close to it. I used vertical ship-lap cedar siding on the porch and both the front and rear entryways. Those locations are under cover of the roof and a sealer has been all that I have applied to it over the last twenty five years. It has become dark and warm with age. Sitting out on the porch feels comfortable, like sitting in an old cabin surrounded by wood. Twenty feet away is a Disneyland of futuristic plastic but right up close is the warmth of wood. I feel like I balanced the budget with something aesthetically pleasing.

For the most part Division Street has given that balance away. Short of pulling all the plastic and metal off the old buildings, and repairing and repainting all the old hidden siding there is nothing that can reclaim the dignity of those buildings and that street. It would be great if the lessons of aluminum/plastic siding could be learned and applied to future renovations but it won’t. People will always look for the cheap, easy way out. If one is looking for clues to the future, look no further than the big box retailer’s display of plastic fencing…Watch it as it turns into land-fill before your eyes.

 *Division Street is located in the town of Peekskill, NY.

Rock a Day

Rock-a-Day

The lady, two houses in from the corner of Ruth Drive, moved last year. She was always bitching at me for walking the dog without a leash. Glad she’s gone. A guy named Boris moved in, he and his wife, seem nice enough. He’s Croatian. The woman who used to live there used to throw out house plants every year. Dumped them into the wet-land across the street from her house. She threw everything in there, limbs and grass cuttings, flowers and stumps. It kind of pissed me off her dumping like that but I made up my mind to mind my own business and for a long time I did. Until one day when she was particularly obnoxious about Gurler peeing on her grass, but that’s another story. She also had a beautiful patch of ornamental grass that she cut back to the roots each Fall. It grew back lush and strong in the Spring. It was variegated pale green and white. Before she started hammering on me about the dog I would say hello to her. She replied with the least effort possible. I disliked her for that. One day while she was digging in the yard I asked her if I might have a cutting from the grass-that would have meant a chunk of the plant including the roots. I would have done it for anybody who would ask me. She ignored me completely, didn’t even bother to answer. I really didn’t like her after that. Then she started to get after me about the dog and that was the complete and total end right there.

One day on my walk-it was very late Fall several years ago-I saw a plastic potted plant in the wet-land. I pulled it out and it was a hunk of the grass like the one in her yard. It was almost dead but I took it home anyway. I don’t think she was rooting it. I think she bought it and never got around to planting it and finally chucked it like trash into the woods. At home I planted it and cut it way back to the roots. I covered it with a layer of grass clippings and wood chips that had been composting for years. Rich, dark loamy almost soil, that would keep the plant safe from the snow and ice during the Winter. In the Spring the grass sprouted and grew all Summer until it was two feet tall. I cut it back in the Fall again and now, several years later, I am rewarded each year with hardy grass over four feet tall. It is beautiful. At the foot of the driveway, under an arching canopy of Sassafras trees the grass is a little monument crowning the field stone retaining wall. One day, walking past it I decided to take the monument a step further.

Every day, in the morning when I walk Gurler, I pick up one stone, one that catches my eye in the culvert or in a field. Round, rough, smooth, gray, square, it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I pick it up at the start of the walk and toss it in the air and catch it over and over as I make the circular journey from Ruth to Jack to Carolyn. Sometimes I pick it up just before I get home. Sometimes it is a heavy, large one and I do curls and exercise my arms and shoulders but mostly they are small-about two or three inches-and smooth and cool. If I dig it up with my fingers or my heel and it is caked with mud I will scour it in the grass and the dew of a neighbor’s lawn until it is clean and dry before I get to the driveway at home. Once there I place it at the base of the ornamental grass. There are hundreds there now and the stones have formed a plinth. A base for my rescued grass… One stone at a time. One rock a day.

Moses took

His folks to the seaside

He spread out his hands.

When he stepped out

Onto the water

He was walking

On solid land.

Oh, Lord!

A rock-a-day

A rock-a-day

Pave the path to heaven

With a

Rock-a-day.

Solomon built him a temple

The good lord showed him the way.

He used

Shining metal,

And dolphin skins,

But he laid the foundation

In the usual way.

He layed it up

With a rock-a-day.

He built his temple

On a rock-a-day.

Rock-a-day

Rock-a-day

Build your temple on a rock a day.

Read me a verse

From the bible.

Let’s hear

What it has to say.

Read a little bit

In the morning,

And read a little more

At the end of the day.

Put my feet

on stepping stones

To heaven.

Pave the path to heaven

With a

Rock-a-day.