(UN)RELIABLE SOURCES: 009
HAVE YOU BEEN RECYCLED YET?

by FRANK O'DONNELL
JULY 18, 2006

Not so long ago, our clothes dryer stopped drying. We did the math. Call the repairman – again – and know we'll have to repeat that exercise again in a couple of months.

Or, break down and buy a new dryer.

We bought the new dryer, which meant the old dryer was trash.

Which meant the old dryer got wheeled to the bottom of the driveway with the rest of the trash on Monday night for a Tuesday morning pickup.

Imagine my surprise to come home from work Tuesday afternoon to find the dryer still sitting there. A flyer had been Scotch taped to it, wondering if I'd called to have "this item" picked up.

It gave the name and number of the trash hauler, and the name and number of the town's Recycling Coordinator.

I'd heard about this guy – some call him The Czar, others use terms we can't print in a family paper – but I hadn't had any personal contact with him prior to this.

I called Town Hall to get the 411. The Czar was out, so I left a message.

While I waited for the return call, I took a ride up the street. On the way to work, I'd noticed another dryer and a hot water heater at the curb of two nearby houses. Sure enough, both were still there, both with flyers attached.

I called some folks who'd told me about their recycling situations to share mine.

"Ha!" said one. "I told you to watch out! You didn't believe me!"

In fact, I hadn't. After all, trash is trash. It's all going to the same place.

 I do my part. Garbage wrapped up, placed in pails. Cardboard and paper in the green bin. Cans, bottles and such in the blue bin.

My friend told me he followed the same rules. But he'd had bottles rejected because they hadn't been rinsed clean, pizza boxes ignored because they hadn't been scrubbed clean of their tomato and cheese residue.

Due to the sudden crackdown, I've even heard of folks who've stopped recycling, instead camouflaging their flagrantly unacceptable refuse in opaque black trash bags.      
   
The phone rang. The Czar was calling to explain why the dryer had been left behind.

Household appliances are considered white goods, he told me. White goods are picked up, by appointment, on the second Friday of every month.

But this was the second Tuesday of the month. The way the calendar worked, white goods had been picked up four days earlier, meaning the next pickup was five weeks away.     
 
White goods, as I understand it, don't fall within normal recycling parameters. Hence the special pickup. Something to do with harvesting certain materials from the innards of the white goods. If we recycle properly, said the Czar, we'll pay less for dump fees, and that will reduce our taxes.

That's his job. Ensure proper recycling by enforcing rules that have existed unenforced for over a dozen years. The Czar admits his is an uphill battle, and knows that he's not well liked. But he's stalwart in his mission. "It can be done right," he told me. "Recycling can do nothing but help us!"

Like I said, I'm willing to chip in. So I'll wait for the next pickup. But in the meantime, to amuse myself, I'll abandon an old rusty car in my driveway, right next to the dryer, and put up a sign that says, "Welcome to Tennessee!"

* * *

An interesting postscript. The dryer sat there for less than a week – I didn't even have time to abandon a car next to it. That Saturday, we had a couple of pizzas delivered. As the driver was leaving, he asked if I knew what was wrong with the dryer. "Stopped drying," I told him.

"Mind if I take it?" he asked.

I told him he was welcome to it. He whisked it into the back of his truck and drove away.

I wonder if I can nominate him as the town's next Recycling Czar?

You can bet he knows what to do with a used pizza box.