Hannah Dondy-Kaplan of Waste Connections in Vancouver, Washington has sent us some very nice pictures from her recent trip to Guatemala.

Here’s the message she sent along with the pictures:

“The car parts are from Flores, which is the hopping off point for seeing the ruins of Tikal, but we saw these in numerous towns. I guess they just take the place of cement columns?

The organics bins are from the Biotopo de Quetzal in the cloudforest outside of Coban in central Guatemala. No Quetzals, but it’s nice to see they have some form of organics recycling. Unfortunately both bins were empty so I couldn’t check to see how they were being used. (There were no signs or other forms of education around them).”

Thanks Hannah for sharing these pictures!

This week’s unique pictures come to us from Faithful Reader Deanna Carveth of Snohomish County. Here’s the e-mail she sent along with the pictures-Brian

“Snohomish County is increasing its efforts to divert green waste into composting and other beneficial use programs. Attached is a customer who brought us a storm impacted tree in compliance with our cover your load requirements. It didn’t come off the truck, but….”

Here’s this week’s story and picture from Bob O’Neal, Owner of Corporate Recycling Services

Perhaps along with a plug for “The ARC of Multnomah” and their JavaTote - the 100% eco friendly multi-purpose tote.

Here is their story:
Every year tons of burlap is dumped in landfills. After its initial use of shipping coffee beans from the international coffee farms to the roasters it is just thrown away. The Arc team salvages a portion of this waste and turns it into an eco-friendly product that improves the environment and the community. These multi-purpose totes are 100% compost friendly and reusable for everyday shopping, traveling, books, garden tools, or other uses. And . . . they are made by developmentally disabled workers who find pride in their work. These sustainable products come in three sizes and all proceeds benefit the ARC in their humanitarian mission of serving people with developmental disabilities. The can also be printed on with a promotional message using soy-based inks.

http://www.thearcmult.org/

CRS introduced the JavaTotes at the WA State General Administration Training Conference and Trade Show, held in Tacoma last week. WE gave out over 200 bags to interested parties who appreciated the story of the ARC.

An Autumn in Bellingham

There are no new recycling pictures this week to share with you, so instead I’m sharing a picture I took.  This is the view I hope to have next year if I’m still living on campus. I took it last Saturday from a room on the ninth floor, it was a gorgeous day! Enjoy. -Brian

Mattress Skinning and Hanging

I would like to introduce you the art of mattress skinning and mattress hanging. If you would like a flyer I will put one together.

Here are 3 pictures of the tools I used for skinning (a serrated Diamond Steakknife and a pair of Clauss electrician scissors). I also included a picture of a naked mattress, a hung mattress, and a picture of an unknown recycler worker for Waste Management (does he look angry!!). My mattress frame was hung only with 2-headed scafford nails. No drywall screws, poles, lumber, scaffoold, or staples were used.

How do I use a naked mattress? For my Spring and Hanging Gardens of course. I am working on 2 flyers about the art of mattess skinning and mattress hanging.
Calvin

I will publish tool/part lists and flyers for free, All you have to do is email me. (Contact Brian, or see the newsletter for Calvin’s address)

Recycling Picture of the Week: Belize

Sego Jackson has provided us with some quite interesting, if not upsetting pictures from his recent trip to Belize. He has provided us with a bit of a narrative and some pictures to get the full effect of what he experienced in the Carribean. Thanks Sego!

In August I visited the island of Ambergris Caye (Belize), as well as the howler monkey reserve on the mainland. The longest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere passes just off shore the Caye. Flying over Ambergris, billowing smoke, the only blight to be seen in what looked to be paradise, was identified by the pilot as the local dump. Several days after arrival, my partner and I rented bikes and rode a butt-sore and sweaty ride to see it. This is the story.

On the way south out of San Pedro Town, we passed the local Coca Cola bottling distributor. It was nice to see that there was a buy back program on returned Coke, Fanta and Sprite containers, though not required by legislation as far as I know. The payment is the equivalent of 2.5 cents U.S. per bottle.

Much further south we found much construction debris and other garbage dumped by the road and into the mangrove swamp. A problem here in Snohomish as well as Ambergris, but we have alder wetlands, not mangrove swamps. Only a few hundred meters beyond, it was sad to see a sign pointing to the beach - or the dump - with both roads of equal significance.

Yes, the dump was burning alright. A small number of recycling scavengers were pulling out plastic Coke, Sprite and Fanta bottles before they caught fire. Working in the acrid smoke, a young girl gathered plastic bottles and carried them away from the fire to where they were …. well, I don’t really know what she was doing… “prepared” by an elderly woman. Probably she counted them. The bags of prepared bottles were then lined up along the road into the dump, to await pick-up and payment I presume. I was amazed that despite the buy back, so many bottles were in the garbage. I suspect that tourists in hotels had sipped those cold drinks.

Some glass bottles also ended up in the dump, and there must be a buy back for them as well, as another older woman washed these, sitting in the fumes of the smoldering garbage. She had filthy water for cleaning the bottles, but nothing to drink. Raven, my partner, gave her the last of our water, asking that she share it with the girl. She didn’t.

As you would expect, the burning garbage had everything in it. As we took our photos, propane tanks or other pressurized containers exploded nearby where the fire was hottest.

Belize needs a producer paid collection system for electronics as do we. Smoldering or burnt tvs, monitors and computers could be found with little effort but some risk. We also noted a tremendous number of plastic water bottles that have no buy back program. By comparison, there were very few Coke, Fanta and Sprite bottles.

Later when we visited the community baboon sanctuary (there are no baboons there, that is the local name for howler monkeys) we were pleased to see they had a strong anti-litter message in pidgin/Creole. We took this shot for our litter campaign friends at Ecology. When the “Litter and It Will Hurt” campaign wears out, let’s try out “Betta No Litta”!

To view the full-sized, original format PowerPoint presentation, download: Observations In Belize.ppt

Recycling Picture Of The Week: Ireland

This week’s picture from Ireland is being shared with you courtesy of Craig Benton. Thanks for sending in all your worldly pictures Craig! - Brian

Here’s his message:

Hope all is going well in Eastern Washington. Here’s a picture for the DTN if you like from Ireland. The attached photo is an overview shot of the new Dungarvan Recycling Centre and Transfer Station. At the location of Waterford County’s closed landfill (Yes it was on a river), the council has installed a small transfer station for waste, a small composting facility and a small drop off centre for recyclables, household hazardous waste, bulky waste and just plain old garbage. The composting facility combines drop-off landscape materials with commercial food scraps collected in the County seat, Dungarvan. The compost facility consists of a tractor/mixer, loader, two-in-vessel digesters (roll-off compatible), an aerated curing pad and a screen (on loan from Waterford City). In the background is a staffed drop-off site with roll-off containers for mixed recyclables (the MRF is just up the street), electronic goods, hazardous waste, batteries, glass, appliances, soil, wood, metal, bulky waste and regular household waste. They take it all. It is one of the best in the country that is beginning to embrace the recycling ethic.

2007 WSRA Conference Call for Abstracts

Dan Cantrell sent the following message to WSRA Members on 9/7/06 and we’re sharing it with you!

“We’ve begun planning for WSRA’s 27th Annual Recycling Conference and Trade Show, Sunday May 6 though Wednesday May 9, at the Vancouver Hilton and Convention Center in Vancouver, Washington. We are excited to be having our conference in a beautiful new facility that is expected to earn LEED certification.

We invite you to review the attached document and consider submitting a presentation proposal for our 2007 agenda. Feel free to forward this to industry experts/leaders that you believe may have an interest in presenting at our event. Both WSRA members and non-members are welcome to provide proposals for session topics. If you are not prepared to submit a proposal, but have a topic or speaker you would like us to pursue, please let us know. Ideas, suggestions and comments are always welcome. Abstracts must be received by October 16, 2007 for consideration.”

Here’s a link to the Abstract Submittal Form in .doc format.

Thanks to Lisa Friend, Craig Benton and Sego Jackson for sending us pictures! This week we’re publishing Lisa’s Bellingham pictures and in the next weeks you can see Craig & Sego’s worldly pictures from Ireland and Belize! Keep them pictures coming! - Brian

Below is the message from Lisa’s e-mail. As always, you can see the pictures on DTN’s website, the link is below!

“Here are two pictures from Sunny Bellingham of our new ‘bottle wall.’ I understand these are more common in desert communities; I believe this is the first installation in our area.

Rick Caldwell of Constantine Builders Inc. (Kenmore), told me his workers used 2,800 bottles in the two walls, culling from a supply of 5,000 that had been donated by three local restaurants. They feel the ‘hard shoulder’ bottles stack up better than the ‘soft shoulder’ bottles (more taper), should anyone want to follow this trend. The walls will be lighted from the ‘neck’ side and landscaped with shrubbery to hide and protect the necks.
Lisa Friend

RE Sources”

I’ve been woke up almost every morning for 30 years by the same intimate friend.  For me, that was a hundred wrinkles and a thousand gray hairs ago!  However…she still looks great!  Well, besides waking me up, she also sings me to sleep ‘most every night.  Almost always I’m asleep before she’s willing to quit whatever lullaby she’s chosen that will lull me towards sweet dreams.  Who is it that has outlasted so many other relationships in my life?

First, here’s how we met and got her to go home with me while I was still a teenager.  It was thirty years ago this month (August 1976) that I came to Spokane to get some things to live on my own at college.  It would soon be my first quarter of attending EWSC (Now EWU) in Cheney, WA.  It was the first quarter towards a degree I will probably never get.  I was looking forward to finally being weaned from my parents.  At every turn my heart and mind was open to new experiences.

I drove from store to store, collecting what a 17 year old thinks they will need at college at the emancipated and mature age of 18.  Mostly I was spending the day away from the farm down in Hartline, skipping out of work.  I finally went in one store and went to the electronics department and…there she was!

She caught my eye.  I walked right up, yet trying to be casual, to see what would happen next.  If I would have known that fate would keep us together for three decades, I probably would have overthought what I should do next and the whole situation would have never went any further than a few glances from a shy farm kid in a big city store.

The less then dramatic news is that the one who has stuck with me all these years, turned out to be my good ol’ clock radio that I found in that long closed store, thirty years ago.  I think I paid almost eighty bucks for that electronic Siren, but what a bargain that’s turned out to be for such a great friend!  If she’s still tickin’ when I quit tickin’, please bury her with me!  As the tears of happiness roll down my cheek, I say goodbye until next week and look forward to our next 30 years together.  Jim

Here’s my old dining hall meal ticket from Eastern Washington State College, from September of ’76…

Recycling Picture of the Week: “Foiled” Pictures

This week’s recycling picture was sent to us by Robin Baumgartner, Public Education Coordinator for Southern Idaho Solid Waste. Below is the text of her message:

“I didn’t take this picture, hence the link. I received Blue October’s ‘Foiled’ CD for my birthday, and when I opened up the liner notes, I saw this photo and immediately exclaimed ‘I KNEW there was a reason I liked this band - they’re at a recycling center!’ Of course, I was immediately dubbed ‘trash nerd of the decade’ by my friends, but oh well. Check out the background of the picture at www.blueoctoberfan.com/foiled/gallery/promogallery/pages/9853.html”

Bonus! The link above is a photo slideshow. To see the entire set of pictures, sit back and relax, they automatically swap - Brian