Posted by
Cassie Myers on Tuesday, February 09, 2010 02:36 pm
Going green is a good thing, right? Less trash, more recycling? Fewer landfills, more trees? Surely this is a thought that everyone in Berkeley can get behind. It would be cheaper and better for everyone.
Think again. B-Town is now facing a $10 million deficit partly because its citizens are not throwing away enough trash. Even recycling and composting have come back to bite us in the ass.
The city only charges for trash collecting and hauls away your recycling and compost for free, largely to encourage greener waste disposal habits. And it’s working. Only problem is, it’s working a little too well, because $4 million of the above deficit came from the lack of trash-collecting moolah.
So do you hear that, all you Prius-driving, composting hippies? Start throwing away more trash! Put paper in the garbage can! Never recycle plastic bags! We need to keep this city in the black!
God, where is Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout when you need her?
Image source: soundfromwayout under Creative Commons
Greener living means less green in Berkeley budget [AP] via Mercury News
.!.
Due to budget imbalances and the general suckiness thereof, Berkeley’s powers-that-be propose the increase of garbage collection fees. Apparently, the drop in Asian demand for recycled paper contributes to the increasing value of dump collection. Say what?
Meanwhile, we have more trash and less money. Now, more fees? No, thanks. Our proposals:
*Dump our trash on the Stanfurd farm; let them deal with the mess.
*Save scraps of receipts and toilet paper to be used for taking notes in class.
*Find a Delorean to eat our crap.
Image Source: hellodan under Creative Commons
Berkeley Garbage Collection Fees May Rise to Balance Costs [Daily Cal]
Berkeley caterer Ari Derfel has saved every piece of trash he has generated in the past twelve months.
All 96 cubic feet of it. And it all sits in his kitchen and living room.
Derfel started this project as a observation of his own consumption habits, but it turned into a statement against consumerism. He will eventually donate the trash to a sculptor to further enhance his statement.
“When we throw something away, what does ‘away’ mean?” Derfel said. “There’s no such thing as ‘away.’”
For Derfel, “away” means his living room.
We applaud Derfel for his clever method in combating consumerism, but we applaud him even more for putting up with what must be an awful stench.
read more »
We’ve discovered why the streets of Berkeley look so messy, especially during this finals season. And no, it’s not because of that bum on the corner over there.
It’s because students leave their shit around the city like it’s their own messy dorm room.
CBS 5 is reporting that it’s become so much of a problem that the university has set up a hotline for people to call if they see a mess on their street corner.
UC Berkeley is encouraging anyone who sees trash to dial (510) 643-5309, and the university will send someone to pick up the garbage.
The campus will also be setting up debris bins around the city where there is a large population of students so that they can throw all their old readers and textbooks away, instead of leaving them in the bushes.
Hey, instead of throwing those old readers away, why not give them to that bum on your local street corner? He needs to get an education too.
UNIVERSITY TRASH NOT CITY’S TREASURE [CBS 5]
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