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Visiting The Hi-Desert?
Please remember to bring a good supply of Trash Bags with you...
(It's not the Picture-Postcard you remember)
Issue #5:
The NOT A State of Emergency / Natural Disaster of Epic Proportions In Our Own Time Bumper Final Issue!
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This issue live online: March 25th, 2002.
Click here to see Issues #1 - #2 - #3 - #4.
A Trash Day / Kiss Your Earth Goodbye Day Special
I originally planned to make this Issue #5 a fun Issue, with constructive solutions and useful links... to start it with a fun e-mail I received from a fellow humorist in Arizona...
Dear Mr. Desert Dweller:
Your approach to the desert trash problem is misguided. By advocating an anti-trash campaign you are depriving anthropologists of the 23rd century from having a rich source of information of a primitive, greedy society.
Just think of the DNA which could be harvested from the used condoms alone! The source of perhaps future dominant mutations might be traced back to a machine oiled French Fry! Plastic American flags made in China will certainly survive any catastrophes and confuse the heck out of graduate students galore. Just think of the theses! I think you'll agree: Plastic lasts and Joshua trees just fall over. You tell me which one is more valued these days ?!?
Thank you for your kind attention.
And the month was off to a good start, but the fun idea changed after a walk along the city side of Mesquite Springs Road and a visit to Yucca Valley to have my car smogged... I spent a few hours walking around while they worked on the car, and what I saw and photographed was just too depressing. Not the Yucca I remember. It took a while to even think how to display them... the effect can be disturbing if you look at them for too long.
So I offer here a page of photos taken in Yucca Valley Monday 11th March, 2002. This collage page may be used by anyone in the hope of stimulating any kind of debate about the problem and sorting it out. Selected photos also appear on the right.
Click here if you must see the full Yucca Valley collage. Personally, I'd rather you didn't look. It's not pretty.
I know I don't live in Yucca and it's maybe none of my business how they do things there, but there is some irony that has to be appreciated... especially when you consider a good portion of this trash is actually created by those who are paid to clean it up. I offer two examples that I have seen with my own eyes. The first is from gardening services who use those infernal blowers to move the trash off their assigned work area until it has moved a sufficient distance away so as not to become their responsibility anymore... the wind then picks it up and moves the trash someplace else. I don't know what idiot invented these things but we should find out where his gravestone is and point all blowers nationwide in that direction so that he may be buried under 10,000 ft of trash. I can imagine his reaction when first trying out the device... “Eureka. I've discovered a new way to pollute the environment.” Not to mention the airborne viruses (hantavirus, etc.) that these thing can blow into the air from rodent feces on the ground where they are being aimed... they wear masks when they operate them, but we don't. If you want to start solving the problem of wind blown trash, you have to ban 'all' blowers - even the solar-powered ones - and issue brooms or rakes instead... or organize a massive retrofit so they suck instead of blow... that would also make a serious inroad to the problem.
Maybe it's because I'm just a college drop-out I don't understand it all properly, but if blowers are so great, why don't people use them in their homes when they clean up? Why do they use vacuum cleaners that SUCK instead... I can only assume it's because they do the job better.
The second area of trash generated by those who are paid to clean it up comes from trash services who use the big trucks to come around and empty the dumpster bins by remote lifting arms... Has anybody else seen how when these things are in the air, and the trash is spilling into the back containment area, how much actually gets blown away by the wind in the process... it's always the light stuff like a burrito wrapper, or lightweight (low manufacturing cost) plastic cola cups... Nobody gets out of the truck to collect this stuff that doesn't quite make it in, and before you know it, again, it's all over the place... and people are paying for this service... I say, just sending a truck out to empty dumpsters along a route without men on foot behind it to ensure 100% job completion is just making things worse for everyone. Ok, that's enough about Yucca Valley... let's move on. If it wasn't for the smog check I wouldn't have seen or written any of this in the first place.
If anyone wants a real laugh, they should find out when the clean up services do the parking lot outside Stater Bros. in 29 Palms... here you'll see a guy walking around with a blower, blowing the trash in any direction the wind wants to take it after his initial prompting, then giving up when the wind is stronger than the blower or if it blows under a parked car, and then watching the parent truck drive around in circles in the parking lot aiming for everything the blower guy has blown into the open spaces (at speeds that often exceed the parking lot speed limit), theoretically sucking all the trash up. I'm always amazed at how many times they can go over the same plastic bag and see it still sitting there, almost defiantly... and then the truck drives away. Job well done till next time. You could do it with an old fashioned broom 100% more efficiently and without the added air pollution but I guess that wouldn't be modern.
HOUSEHOLD HAZARDOUS WASTE DISPOSAL:
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Joshua Tree
Solid Waste Management Building.
62499 29 Palms Highway
Joshua Tree
3rd Saturday 9 — 1
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"Facilities may close in severe weather conditions and will reopen the next scheduled day as weather permits"
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We wanted to offer this helpful map for people to dispose of their hazardous waste and tell them where to go, but even this is sad really... if you look at the opening times, you can only take your waste on the third Saturday of every month between the hours of 9 AM - 1 PM... a window of 4 hours a month that if you don't make, you're stuck with whatever hazardous waste you wanted to get rid of for another month... and then there's always the possibility it may be closed during “severe weather conditions” ...considering this is the desert, it could be argued that every day is severe.
Why is there no phone number listed so you can call and check ahead of time if the weather is ok today for a deposit? I can't help asking as well... What kind of place opens up for 4 hours a month? Why even invest the money to build a facility at all if it's going to be closed 99% of the time? How can anyone live on a salary that only pays 4 hours a month?
Do you know what they do in Germany? They have a program where you call a number and the disposal people arrive to take it away... all you have to do is call them and tell them what it is... they make it easy for you - NOT HARDER... Don't believe me? Read the online source here. (It's near the bottom of the page).
How about we strive to make our hazardous waste facility open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, with a drive-through window... fast food style, for our convenience. And with a telephone 'pick-up' service thrown in as well.
A number to call and get this process started might be: 1-800-382-5401... ask for the Manager, then ask for his Supervisor (or his Supervisor's phone number), and take it from there... keep asking for a person one level up until you find someone that can give you a meaningful answer and who is capable of implementing a change. Don't stop till you've had enough (© M. Jackson).
TRASH DAY in 29 Palms & Yucca Valley is: April 13th:
Please make a note of these important bits of info.
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- In Yucca Valley, The Clean Team have a daunting task ahead of them and need your help... Contact Barbara Jorgensen on 369-7207 or e-mail her here.
- In 29 Palms you can contact Gary Blackman on 367-6799... or e-mail him here for more information about City Trash Day activities... but as of his last e-mail, he didn't know much.
- Also in 29 Palms, more on the County side, you can volunteer to be a Trash Man Walking. Use our online enrollment form for your convenience. Please note though that our TMW project continues on afterwards as well throughout the year, (with the support of the County or without it).
Plastic Bags Have Got To Go!!!
That's the theme of our bag blight pictures... because if they don't go, or something isn't done, that's all we'll see everywhere pretty soon.
I actually attached some lightweight plastic radio transmitters to some of these wind blown plastic bags so I may conduct an enormously expensive study using global positioning satellites to map the movement of them over time under the influence of nature...
With charts and graphs, and an overlay of our prevailing winds, I hope to work out the exact date and arrival time of this trash in 29 Palms and how long they will take to circle the earth four times before going near a recycling bin...
Any Plastic lobbyist worth his salt will tell you that plastics are actually good for our environment in some way... I'd like to know though if even they will say plastic is actually better than taking your own bag (or box) to the store every time you shop so that plastic bags need never be used again...
And asking... How many people (apart from me obviously ) can see the mess they cause and would like to see their immediate ban in the hi-desert at least?
What is so wrong with taking your own bags to the store (any store) when you do the shopping? Let's face it... for the amount of what it costs to make these plastic bags and throw them away every time, as cheap as they may be, it would still be cheaper to issue everyone with a bag they can use over and over... with a free exchange when it breaks and a fair sale price if people want more... There needn't be another plastic bag draped around a cactus or creosote bush ever again. And people might say... “Wow, those desert folk are pretty advanced... sounds like a nice place where people care... we must go there.”
What others do...
Bangladesh (yep that's right, BANGLADESH)... has banned plastic bags in Dhaka. They were getting in the drainage systems and causing sewage problems... so they made a sensible decision to ban them. And if you think that can't happen here, I have the picture to prove you wrong.
In Austria, they're doing away with the plastic milk carton. You can take a glass milk bottle from your home and just refill it at a pump in the store.
In Germany, Industry must take back and recycle all used packaging. They also offer collecting places for old electronic products. We have one of those too, but it would require at least a 4/5 hour drive to Ontario and back and the payment of a disposal fee. No wonder people just dump the stuff anywhere where nobody is looking... I say, if it's a Hitachi TV or Sony monitor (or whatever), Sony or Hitachi must take it back as conveniently as you bought it... without any stinkin' disposal fee. Especially since they're constantly bringing out newer and faster and better models they want us to upgrade to.
If you want to do the 4/5 hour drive there and back to get rid of your TV or computer monitor, and pay the $30.00 per item disposal fee, call 909-923-7252 for more info, or check their web site here.
Read more on what other countries do in this interesting article online with the Guardian Newspaper in the UK...
I'm wondering as well if this littering isn't the work of extremist litter terrorists who are working on a three-pronged attack to: A) ruin our countryside, B) kill our joy of life, and C) undetected, litter us to death? I ask this question only after finding this possible clue near a pile of trash by the roadside. I wondered if it was their cryptic way of leaving a calling card to let us know who was behind this hideous onslaught.
And I know everyone is wondering what's happened since the Trash Walk I did with Julie Hernandez of the Third District on the 5th March... well I'll tell you. It's pretty confusing: Read the whole thing here to find out the latest.
Also, since nobody else is, I'm conducting my own 'Citizen's Inquiry' into this fast food trash problem... Read my letter to the local am/pm, MacDonald's, Burger King, Jack in the Box, & Del Taco stores in town... Read their responses here.
Volunteer to be a "TRASH MAN WALKING"
 To get around some of the red tape in getting trash removed, it seems you have to have a Name... I don't subscribe to this theory myself, but accepting the inevitable, I buckled and decided on a name for our volunteers.
Henceforth, we are now proud members of... "Trash Man Walking". And trust me on this... anyone volunteering to be a Trash Man Walking will have to be up to the task of taking it seriously or they won't be accepted.
Use this simple online enrollment form and become a 'TRASH MAN WALKING' today... We have openings for a few good people who are dedicated to spending a few hours a month (at least) in a relaxing desert environment, removing trash from around plants, with refreshments and iced water thrown in.
View our Sponsors page here
Final Issue:
I said this is the Final issue and I mean it... I see little point in repeating myself or just offering yet more photos of other trash in slightly different scenic locations - it's too depressing.
With issues 1, 2, 3, 4, and this one, I believe I have done enough to at least raise sufficient awareness of the problem for anyone who says they are concerned... not to mention constantly writing e-mail to County officials who don't even know what areas they are responsible for is a complete waste of my valuable time.
Until the clean up actually begins and I can take some 'Before & After' type pictures and offer some positive updates, I plan on spending my time just walklng around picking up the trash and doing what I can to organize the Trash Man Walking volunteers. It'll be a whole lot more productive and hell of a lot more satisfying.
I couldn't even get away from the trash for a day by visiting some of our local National Monuments - as some of these other pictures on the right show. It's very depressing being a nature photographer right now.
Dear Diary: This issue is way too long already and I must conclude it if I'm to get it up in time for Trash Day (which I hope isn't cancelled because of severe weather conditions). However, if you want to read any more, check out the diary I've been keeping since the last Trash Walk. An interactive day-to-day offering of everything that's happened and formed the basis for this final issue.
I know I'll look back on this issue and wish I had said something else, or phrased something slightly differently, or added an extra picture, but it's all a rush... so this is it, for better or worse... we'll be back with an Issue #6 if and when things improve.
A MUST READ!!
 Whether you like him or not... you really need to read the new book by Michael Moore, 'Stupid White Men'... (A more apt title might have been "Stupid Human Race") (or even Stupid American Race, but that might not have sold so well)... Mike's a smart guy.
And let's be honest, it's not as if he needs the money any more so I strongly recommend you form reading groups of three or four people and share the book... each chapter is self contained so you can rip them out and pass them around... it's already a best seller, and with chapters like "Nice Planet, Nobody Home", it's essential reading for anyone who remotely cares anything about anything.
You can order it online right now from Amazon... and while you're at it, ask them if they would like to get involved in sponsoring our trash clean up program for the hi-desert.
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Trash Collection Update: As this issue draws to a close, we are very (very) happy to report that a Code Enforcement truck with mesh sides and protective top netting arrived here 10:15 AM, 3/21/02 to take away the first 20 odd bags of trash and oil contaminated soil we've picked up on our walks so far.
Who says if you stick things on the world wide web for everyone to see, write enough e-mails, and include your Federal Senators on your mailing updates, things can't get done? Not me! I was still in my underpants wiping the sleep from my eyes when they arrived (with no advance warning), but rather than waste time getting dressed I just helped them throw the bags in the back of their truck.
As an added bonus, I also got them to pick up the bed by the road on the their way out that's featured in Issue #1. This was especially pleasing because it was the discovery of this bed dumped overnight that led to the start of this whole thing. Like most people, I was numb and kind of oblivious to it all until this one thing opened my eyes to what else was lying around everywhere when I began looking where I was walking.
• Click here to see the number of bags Trash Man Walking have collected to date.
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Other fun and interesting stuff:
A cartoon from Private Eye in England offers this amusing viewpoint on their trash problem - so it's not just us, it's actually a world wide epidemic, which doesn't mean... “Well that's ok then” - or maybe it does and I'm just an oddball.
And since we started with an e-mail from Arizona, we might as well end with one as well... it seems some person in the mining town of Surprise, AZ is also concerned about their trash problem... the following article/letter was printed in the Arizona Republic under the heading: Camouflage the Trash. (No I'm not making this up).
“If all Styrofoam cups and containers and plastic bags were green or tan, they would not be noticed as trash along the highways. Now, try to get that passed by the Arizona Legislature!
Shirley Wallace
Surprise”
Final Final Editorial Comment:
If this trash were designated a fire hazard, it would be cleaned up in an instant. If it were a hazardous chemical spill, there would be a Haz-Mat team around it in seconds and people would be evacuated from their homes... but it's just good old American Corporate Trash (ACT) and nobody - EXCEPT A VERY FEW CONCERNED INDIVIDUALS - gives a flying rat's ass about it - which is unfair to rats and I apologize to them. No matter that it's ankle deep in some places... However, if you feel what I'm saying is so wrong, please PROVE me wrong by signing up to become a Trash Man Walking... there are many many ways you can offer support if you care, regardless of where you live or who you work for, or what corporation you are. You can even support the project from another country if you want to... just e-mail me for details. Remember... there's no pressure like International pressure. |
| E-mail any comments about this site here. |
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Other comments received via e-mail:
“Ya ain't seen nuthin' until you've seen Lowell, Massachusetts. I guess I'm numb to it. The landscape here was ruined back in the 1800's, with all the mills and the rapid construction that came with the
textile boom.
We screwed up and bought a house next to an apartment building. Their trash overflows, the truck comes and empties the dumpster, but the trash on the ground stays and nobody picks it up. This goes on for a week or two, then we have to call the city, who cites the owner, who finds someone to clean it up - by now two to three weeks have passed, the animals have had an ongoing party, and it's blown all over the neighborhood :(
I wish you the best of luck with your project!
PS: Maybe the city lawn has special grass, it won't let trash stick, or has some kind of nasty acidic property that dissolves solid waste on contact... Worth looking into in either case :) |
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A Native American viewer to this site writes in...
“Great site, gives one something to think about . It's really sad that in this day and age this problem is totally overlooked . And seems to be at the bottom of all our officials list . Shame doesn't seem to be a word they can relate to . I guess as long as they have their job that's all that matters. Well hang in there, looking forward to your next page.”
My response: Thanks for that. Comments such as these, from a REAL American, mean more to me than a lot of the BS that comes from others who say they care but do little or nothing about it, or even acknowledge we have any kind of problem at all. And you're right, they should be ashamed. I don't even know how they have the conscience to take a salary for allowing this to go on every day. It should be halved immediately at the very least with the money saved used to pay as many people as necessary to go out and clean it all up properly once and for all, acre by acre. Same with the so called trash services... If you don't do the job 100% properly, you don't get paid. |
And a final final update as this issue goes online...
“Sad picture!!!!! Keep up your good work.....”
That was an e-mail I received from Julie Hernandez on 3/13/02 in response to the Yucca oil filter picture I sent her. Even sadder to me though is despite numerous requests to her and Kathy Bingham, I have not received any response to my request for a dumpster to be provided so I may attempt to clear 'some' of these piles up by myself (since nobody else seems to CARE enough to do it). In fact, replies to my e-mail seem to have completely dried up lately and I can't help wondering why. The last e-mail I received from Julie was 3/18/02 when she said she would be “talking to Kathy Bingham about providing a dumpster”, and the last e-mail from Kathy Bingham I received was 3/12/02, expressing her pleasure that I had at last made contact with Code Enforcement, (and that was a reply to the e-mail I sent her a week earlier on 3/5/02 telling her about the contact and Trash Walk we did).
I can only e-mail someone so many times before I realize that I'm obviously wasting my time with them, therefore, if anyone would like to e-mail: Kathy Bingham (Solid Waste Management Division), or e-mail: Julie Hernandez (3rd District Code Enforcement Supervisor), and ask them: WHY are they not responding, and WHY has no dumpster been provided yet? The reply might prove interesting.
Another couple of questions might be: WHY has some of the waste, that they themselves acknowledge may potentially contain hazardous material, been allowed to sit there for so long, and WHY would they even allow a volunteer to expose himself to it at all if it is potentially hazardous? I can only urge you to PLEASE e-mail them to ask WHY and let me know any response (or non-response) you get. These are not exactly difficult questions to answer after all.
I did send them one last e-mail as this issue goes online... any response it draws will be added at the bottom when it comes in.
I have to report as well that the collection made yesterday by the two people from Code Enforcement who came out to pick up the trash bags and bed was not as great as I first thought. Sadly, it demonstrates, (to me anyway), a pretty much useless performance by people who I don't believe care at all... and if they say they do, I'm inclined to call them a liar... or at the very least, label them so completely incompetent that I wonder how they even remain employed... I certainly wouldn't give them a job working for me as a volunteer, let alone as a paid employee.
Take for example this pile of wood I had dragged to the edge of the road ready for pick up... they backed their vehicle straight past it and then drove straight past it again when they left without even stopping to put them in the truck... care they ask? And when they picked up the bed, just a few paces along from it were several more pieces of wood that I'd dragged to the side of the road to again enable easy pick up... were these picked up? No, they're still there as well. And what about the bed? Completely gone you ask? Not exactly. As this picture shows, they may have picked up the bed, but the left behind various pieces of it that had become detached... they didn't even make a second walk back to pick them up and just left this here as well... that's how much they really care about trash in the desert. Fortunately I care a 100% more than they do and picked them all up myself ready for the next batch. I hate to labor a point, but if this is the best they can do with one bed, how can you trust them to do anything properly at all?
And what of the trash they picked up? Twenty odd bags of every conceivable type of trash imaginable: Plastics (from the completely non-recyclable type through every level of recycling number there is), jars, bottles, tins, containers, cola cans, beer cans, beer bottles - all with a still valid CA redemption value on them, all types of paper, cardboard, wax paper, car parts, plastic bags, radio parts, building materials, oil filters, oil containers, a bag of oil contaminated sand, garden trimmings, broken glass, fiberglass paneling, all different types of wood, etc., etc., etc.... I have to wonder what's happened to them all now... were they sorted and disposed of properly? Was the oil contaminated bag of sand separated from the cans and bottles? Was the wood and garden trimming sent through a wood chipper for mulching? Were the recyclable plastics separated from the non-recyclable plastics? Or was the whole thing just dumped onto some landfill without a second thought? My guess is for the latter, but I would like to be told I'm wrong and that it was sorted out properly. But if I'm not wrong, and this stuff was just dumped, it would demonstrate not only a complete lack of care about what goes into our dumps, but it would also represent an illegal dumping operation by the County themselves of the hazardous oil contaminated waste. Obviously I did make them aware of the nature of the contents in an earlier e-mail so they can't say they didn't know... Anyone wanting to find out for themselves what happened to it knows who to e-mail. But then again, maybe sorting it out properly when they get back to the depot is the one thing they do do properly... A nice thought, but based on what I've seen so far, I have to have my doubts.
It's not my intention to make anyone look bad here on purpose... But I have to report the facts as I see them and express my opinion on what I see happening (or not happening). If things were taken care of promptly, in an outstanding way, I'd be the first to report that as such, but all these piles are still here and it's very disgusting. I could say that I think my cat could have done a better job of picking up the bed than the two Code Enforcement people who came out here did, but that would just be rhetoric on my part. What Julie Hernandez will have to say about it 'officially' when she hears of it will hopefully be more definitive and meaningful... at this moment, she is blissfully unaware.
Available for Senate hearings: If any inquiries or hearings are to be conducted into the nature of this trash mess and any proposed clean up, I would like to offer any or all of the e-mail correspondence (both in and out) to date from my computer, along with a copy of every photo taken by me on my numerous trash walks... please e-mail me for this here.
See, I told you this was a Bumper Final Issue, I just didn't know it would be this bumper. Unfortunately a lot of trash that could have been picked up is still there because I've been working on this issue for too many hours, but that is about to change very shortly... I bid you happy Trash Walking and I hope to see your volunteer form soon... obviously any County employees will have a hard time getting accepted by Trash Man Walking because they can't be trusted to even pick a bed up properly, plus my standards are a little higher than what they seem used to... Someone asked me: Why are our tax dollars used to employ such incompetent people? I can only answer I don't know, but it certainly seems wrong to me. Feel strongly enough about it? Then e-mail your State and Federal representatives... don't know their e-mail address? Ask me and I'll give them to you.
One very very last thing... how about this... trash actually causing an accident. This nearly happened tonight as we were driving down Mesquite Springs Road... a piece of slow moving trash was blowing across the road at a pace that made it look like an animal or lizard crossing the road... I naturally slowed down thinking that's what it was, but as I was slowing down, the person behind me couldn't wait and pulled around me to overtake. As it turned out, it was just a small brown plastic bag, but it could have very easily caused an accident... then a little while later in town, there were 5 or 6 more bags all blowing across the street as if a migration was in progress. And that is definitely IT! |
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