A Refusal Refusal

We've been gearing up for a couple months to fit into Renton's plan for a renewed garbage disposal contract. there are new containers and revised pick-up schedules as well as additional stuff targeted for recycling. This is certainly all good. Increasingly sophisticated stategies for waste mangement seem to be one bright spot on our otherwise pretty bleak environmental performance report card. Times have changed. In the 50's there wasn't any regular collection in Kennydale and everyone took care of their own garbage in their own way. At our house Pa guided us in executing a multifaceted waste elimination program that was environmentally sensitive and degrading in approximately equal degrees.

Unlike many folks in lower Kennydale we had a sanitary septic system that actually worked. No failures or foul smells emanating and ugly messes oozing out of the ground here and contributing to Lake Washington's nutrient load and pollution. Pre-Metro this very common residential circumstance was possibly the main reason this lakeside community didn't increase in development and value. So we were fine with sewage.

There was also composting, using manure in the garden and burying deceased critters and butchering offal under the fruit trees. All good approaches it turns out and practical, which was about the only point then.

On the other hand we burned anything that would; or almost would; or maybe would - brush as well as a lot of household paper, plastic and "stuff". My folks had burn barrels in back well into the 80's and we still regularly dig up bottle caps and metal bits. Old batteries. Miscellaneous junk. There's a lot of vintage broken glass in the dirt around the east end of the raspberry row. Automotive oil, antifreeze and other like fluids got poured in patterned drip lines up and down the street out front as a do-it-yourself dust control measure for what was then unpaved Park Ave. No. (104th SE). Lake Washington bottom core samples practically have sediment layers with our name on them (" ...these soils appear to be contaminated with brake fluid from the McNeely's 1952 Nash Ambassador." Just kidding(?)).

Even with such a broad based multi-disciplinary approach, however, it was sometimes requisite to go "to da dump". Almost everyone hauled stuff to get rid of it, but, just like today, not everyone went to the proper facility to do it. There were numerous traditional roadside sites along rural roads where dumping was seemingly tolerated or only gently frowned upon. We never used those, though. Pa was a relatively good citizen and we always traveled to the official landfill on the east side of I-90 at what is now Eastgate. Except one time. On a Sunday morning he and I loaded up the green '47 Pontiac sedan with bags and boxes of stuff from the house and a project; headed to the official site. It was closed. Pa reluctantly decided, "just this once" to leave our garbage along the road into the facility. Of course there was a better citizen than Pa and he took our license plate no. A week or so later we got an offer not to refuse from King County in the mail: "clean up or pay up". So we went back, picked up our junk and and finished its journey. To his credit, Pa was accountable, stand up (we went back in that same car, lest anyone mistake us for samaritans) and good humored about this incident. It had lasting impact on my estimation of him and was my first clue that the environmental frowning wasn't gentle anymore.