Garbage Piles Rise In Portland

We need a scorecard app for tracking incidents on Tri-Met's loot rail lines. This week's latest event involved a woman carrying a machete on one of their "trains". Many citizens seem to believe that, given the frequent gunplay, stabbings, beatings, muggings and other incidents which Tri-Met inevitably characterizes as "rare occurrences", the woman may have been simply exercising good common sense.

And Portland's recent autocratic move to eliminate weekly garbage removal continues to generate waves, although the smart, perky, and all-knowing 30-somethings at city hall downplay citizen concerns: Lauren Norris, sustainable living outreach manager for the Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, says that just a teeny percentage of people are upset, and that's probably because they're old idiots who should just move someplace else if they don't like it. Well, she didn't actually say that last part, but the implication's pretty clear. The perky city employee offers this sage advice to that small percentage:

“It’s important to keep the lid closed and you might have to move your bin farther from your house – maybe to the far side of your garage. In the summer, keeping the bin in a shady place will help reduce the smell.”

Don't ya just love the kids?

Do we really need to pay salary and benefits for a sustainable living outreach manager for any Bureau of Planning and Sustainability?

Related articles

• TriMet's proposed service cuts, changes: The full list (oregonlive.com)

Comments

[Sam L.]

Will Portlanders ever rise up and vote these fools out of office? I got $5 on No. Offer expires in 2020.

[Max]

I'm not taking that bet. Part of the problem is that we keep getting more fools coming here:

Name me a Republican dominated big city in the USA that is as beautiful and is a hub for young people as Portland, OR and I will shut my mouth. I cannot name one Republican dominated big city that young folk, like myself are flocking to make our home and put a real stake in the ground to call it ours and die there.

Tempting, this one is.

[Ian Random]

I often think that the whole point of local government is to do whatever it is responsible in the least efficient way.

[T D]

I thought their argument that food was still going to be picked up every week. Is it because with regular garbage you were able to wrap waste food in plastic bags and now you just throw it in lose or wrap in in napkins or paper towels?

I feel sorry for families with diapers and a lot of disposable garbage every week that comes with having kids.

[Max]

Ian: your observation certainly holds true here in Portlandia.

TD: Don't know about you, but most of us here don't fill a 35-gallon wheelie bin with "kitchen scraps" each week. They actually advise us to set the bin out anyway because "every little bit helps". Meanwhile, what people actually pay for - garbage removal, is cut in half and the rates go up.

Here at el rancho indebto, we generate comparatively little actual garbage, as we compost stuff in a backyard bin; have for years. We don't need the change in service, the higher costs, and the fact that it was done on a whim - just so the city council and their bureaucrats can feel all "green" and "cool".

I know for a fact that a lot of folks around here who generate more garbage due to larger families, home improvement projects, etc. are packing their trash to local park cans, or hiding trash in paper bags (easy to come by, as Portland city council mandated a ban on plastic bags) and burying it in the middle of their "recycling" bins. See also:

http://maxredline.typepad.com/maxredline/2012/02/shove-it-up-your-glass.html

for a look at what really happens to significant amounts of that "recycled" glass.

Basically, I - and others - have grown pretty tired of perky 30-somethings who know so much better than we, coming in and attempting to dictate virtually every aspect of our lives. It's irksome to have tax dollars paying exorbitant salaries and benefits to such smug little twerps.

[T D]

"hiding trash in paper bags (easy to come by, as Portland city council mandated a ban on plastic bags)"

Heh! Undoubtedly true.

[Max]

The law of unintended consequences applies even to Portland politicians.