Given the now mythic “Miracle on the Hudson,” the Jan. 15 event in which an Airbus 320 USAirways aircraft was successfully landed on New York’s Hudson River after a dual bird strike caused catastrophic engine failure, you’d think New York officials would be especially attuned to the problems caused by attracting large numbers of birds to airports. Nevertheless, the Associated Press reports that the city is mulling construction of a large transfer station 700 yards from the end of a runway at LaGuardia International Airport.

City sanitation managers and the Federal Aviation Administration say that the transfer facility would not pose a risk because all waste handled on the site will be in containers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, pilots, bird experts and members of Congress remain skeptical.

“Stand in any street and watch the garbage truck go by. Guess who is flying above them? They leak liquid, they have trash hanging off the sides — anybody knows that,” Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., says in the AP report. “The whole thing is mystifying. Of all the places to put it, why direct deadline center at the end of a runway?”

For father and son garbage collectors Gary and Chris Checkan, the day began like any other. Their truck full, the pair stopped for lunch in Rochester, Pa. before heading to the landfill to unload. That was when they spotted 22-year-old Dale Robertson, suspected in the robbery of the nearby Huntington Bank, running by in a mask and hood. Chris jumped out of the truck and chased down Robertson, tackling him from behind. Gary, afraid the suspect had a gun (he didn’t), rushed in to help subdue him.

Robertson also is thought to have perpetrated another bank robbery and six Subway shop holdups. The Checkans, who work for Valley Waste of Zelienople, Pa., are being hailed as heroes.

Bet the next day’s route seemed awfully dull.

Source: KDKA, Pittsburgh

You may think that that moldering, half-eaten burrito you’ve been carefully neglecting in the break room fridge is no big deal. But you’re wrong. Dead wrong.

An office worker in the AT&T building in San Jose, Calif. tried to be a hero and clean the break room fridge. The unplugged refrigerator was packed with rotten lunches. That stench, combined with fumes from the chemicals she was using to scrub the fouled appliance elicited a call to 911. Firefighters evacuated the building and a hazmat team was summoned. Seven co-workers wound up in the hospital and 28 people had to be treated for vomiting and nausea. Conveniently, the good Samaritan was fine, as her sense of smell had been incapacitated due to allergies.

For God’s sake, send those people some baking soda!

Source: Associated Press

Waste Age has reported on trash blogs before, but this one is exceptional. Inspired by the short film, “The Story of Stuff,” (which is really making the rounds) Matthew Luxon and his wife Waveney Warth of Christchurch, New Zealand, challenged themselves to produce as little waste as possible between Feb. 1, 2008, and Feb. 1, 2009. They set several ground rules, including not buying anything housed in non-recyclable packaging or just avoiding anything deemed “junky,” mandatory composting, making at home what they might otherwise buy, etc. Then they kept a blog documenting their experience, titled “Rubbish-Free Year.”

The byproduct of one year of two people living this way: One small bag of nonredeemable trash. Most impressive. I highly recommend reading the last entry in the couple’s blog, which includes an amusing itemized list of exactly what that bag contains.

(Below is an editorial penned by Waste Age’s Editorial Director Bill Wolpin. It will in appear in Waste Age’s May issue.)

So, it has come to this: Even garbage is worthless. That remark was made by a Beijing businessman who buys and sells recyclables. After decades of delusions about recycling being the simple answer to our solid waste problem, the markets for the valuable commodities rescued from trash cans have evaporated like our 401(k)s.

It’s too easy to blame the Chinese — after all, because they bought more than half our paper exports for decades, some of us began to believe that money grows on trees. Now, communities that balanced some of their recycling programs’ costs with income from selling recyclables are being rudely reminded that they are in a business where their products’ prices can fluctuate, sometimes wildly.

When it comes to our garbage habit, the Chinese are our enablers. Their hordes of cheap products made us feel rich. The low prices magnified our buying power, and like magic, our dollars appeared to be growing. Who can turn down a $30 DVD player? If you’re standing in a landfill, you can see how many would rather buy a new one instead of fixing an old one.

Over time, our waste relationship with the Chinese became symbiotic. They made products we could afford — which softened the blow from years of stagnant wages — and, in return, we flooded them with dollars, which fueled their economy to unprecedented heights. Eventually, we performed a magic trick of our own by turning their goods into garbage, some of which they bought back from us, fueling our recycling programs. They were happy. We were happy (trade deficit aside), and few questioned much, that is until our economy — and the world’s — became unglued.

The recycling market is an insignificant part of our economic engine, but its story is a microcosm of the plague that has infected the larger body politic.  Our financial houses were built out of a deck of cards full of jokers that would have made Houdini blush. We allowed ourselves to be convinced that we were the wizards, the dollars we invested were multiplying, and the money loaned to us for houses or credit card purchases confirmed our wise decisions. In the meantime, the illusion of wealth is over, and we have to live with the reality we created. And, at least for a while, garbage will remain garbage.

Fans of the Kentucky Derby see nothing wrong in reveling in wretched excess, recession be damned. Big hats and big bets (and, no doubt, big hangovers) are the rule of the day. So it’s no surprise that the volume of trash left behind at Churchill Downs each year is enough to choke a thoroughbred.

According to the Courier-Journal, 500 volunteers collected an estimated 180 tons of trash during yesterday’s clean-up, ranging from discarded sprigs of mint from long-since-quaffed juleps, to trampled lawn chairs, to discarded betting tickets. And with 50-1 favorite Mine That Bird pulling off the second biggest upset in Derby history, there were a lot of the latter.

As a connoisseur of “turning trash object ‘X’ into art object ‘Y’” stories, I’ve gotten a little jaded about salvaged art. But the work of artist Jean Shin, as highlighted on NPR and currently being featured in the Smithsonian, is some of the cooler stuff I’ve come across. Mainly, I appreciate that she doesn’t settle for the one-dimensional “see, trash is actually useful/interesting/not trash!” argument posited by a lot of salvage artists. She uses trash, she makes art, but each piece makes its own statement, such as chandeliers made of empty prescription medication bottles, or forests of old trophies altered to celebrate every day endeavors. Be sure to check out her site.