Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Bill Murray, making an appearance on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” was to pull a stunt in which he dove into a Dumpster outside the studio filled with water and sodden trash (parodying New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s initiative to install temporary public swimming pools made from Dumpsters). Splash. Applause. Cue Paul Shaffer.

But something went awry, because when Murray entered the studio after his aquatic antics, he was bleeding visibly from a gash on his head. Neither Murray nor Letterman mentioned the injury on air (oozing head wounds tend to elicit more “yucks” than yuks), and makeup personnel attempted to camouflage it during a commercial break. Some suspect the head injury is to blame for Murray missing a subsequent scheduled appearance at a screening of his new film “Get Low.”

Few noticed the waterlogged gopher quietly scurrying from the Dumpster pool with large mallet clenched in its teeth.

Source: CBS News

Though she couldn’t explain quite how it happened, Jewel Matthew of Brooklyn, N.Y., fell down her apartment building’s garbage chute. And thanks to her 200-pound girth, she wedged there. Good thing too, considering she lived on the building’s 15th floor, and while a fifteen-floor fall might be fine for bags of garbage, it’s not recommended for the people heaving them.

Firefighters immediately cut power to the automatic trash compactor at the bottom of the chute. They were still puzzling over how to extricate the 36-year-old Matthew when she unexpectedly dropped from the 15th floor to the 14th. She was rescued when firefighters were able to cut into the chute from below and pull her out.

Suddenly, the stairs don’t look so bad.

Source: The New York Daily News

Among the myriad reasons for concern as cleanup crews confront the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, add this one: untreated oil-soaked debris and liquid waste are winding up at landfills. While BP officials quoted in the New York Times report insist that flammable elements and carcinogens like benzene are inert by the time the material is landfilled, others quoted in the piece say there is still plenty of reason for concern.

As an example of what is going to landfills, the piece details the material collected at Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon, La.:

About 35,000 bags — or 250 tons — of oily trash have been carted away from this beach, said Lt. Patrick Hanley of the Coast Guard, who is stationed at Port Fourchon. And as of Monday, more than 175,000 gallons of liquid waste — a combination of oil and water — had been sent to landfills, as had 11,276 cubic yards of solid waste, said Petty Officer Gail Dale, also of the Coast Guard, who works with at the command center in Houma.

Given the dissembling, half-truths and ineptitude that have marked BP’s handling of the oil spill thus far, it is easy to be skeptical when the company claims we have nothing to fear from the tons of oily waste it is burying. What’s your take? Is your company involved in the cleanup? What have you observed?

A group of fifth-graders at Rutherford Elementary in Stillwater, Minn. had a problem. Reliant on bikes or walking to get to school, the kids were forced to navigate a maze of trash bins on collection days. Cars weaving through bins in the road made things even more unsafe.

Dubbing themselves the Twizbots, the kids sought solutions. They first investigated Envac, an elaborate underground piping system that uses a high-pressure vacuum to move trash around. Despite successful deployments at Walt Disney World and in Montreal, the Twizbots realized such an expensive project was not feasible for their neighborhoods.

As an alternative, the Twizbots worked with Waste Management and members of the city council to more accurately define the term “curbside,” ensuring that bins would be constrained to the curb and not allowed in the street. They followed up by distributing leaflets to residents explaining the updated ordinance. The city council, previously unaware of then Envac system, said they might even consider it for some upcoming park construction projects.

Quick! Someone send the Twizbots to Congress.

Source: The St. Paul Pioneer Press

Workers at a waste facility in New Bern, N.C., no doubt snapped to attention when they came across not one but two unexploded landmines. Police and a bomb squad were called in to have a look. The devices turned out to be S-mines, incendiary devices that date to World War II, colorfully referred to in military circles as “Bouncing Bettys.” Neither device had a fuse, rendering them relatively harmless. One mine had already been crushed by a landfill compactor (to no ill effect, obviously). The origin of the devices was unknown, but city and landfill officials suspect the ordinance was destined for disposal elsewhere and simply was misdelivered.

So much for the new Pentagon recycling initiative.

Source: New Bern Sun Journal

The owners of Central Landfill in Johnston, R.I., had a problem: Local all-terrain vehicle (ATV) and dirt bike enthusiasts were illegally trespassing on the 1,200-acre property and using the landfill and surrounding woods for off-road riding.

The solution? Fight four-wheelers with four-wheelers. Using $17,000 in federal Homeland Security funding, two Johnston police officers were furnished with ATVs of their own (complete with shotgun holsters) and put on patrol to take down those no-good, dump-jumping motorheads.

The plan has helped curb the municipal waste motocross. Since instituting the patrols, half as many illegal off-roading incidents have been reported. One suspects those riders are too busy applying for jobs with the Johnston Police Department.

Source: The Providence Journal

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

So through a navigational snafu, a Netherlands Air Force plane landed at Little Rock National Airport in Arkansas instead of Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville, Ark. No big deal, right? Just get those Dutch flyboys refueled, show them a map, and send them on their merry way. Not so fast! What about the two bags of trash produced by the 10-person crew during the flight?

In most cases, trash from international flights is incinerated upon arrival since the government regulates all incoming material (primarily to prevent the spread of foreign plant and animal pests and diseases). And most international airports are equipped to do this. But, as its full name clearly indicates, Little Rock National is NOT an international airport.

The result? A charge of $1,750 to have the trash incinerated off site. For about twice that, the airport could have bought its own incinerator (which it is now looking into).

Seems like a lot of fuss for some Heineken bottles, salty licorice and a half-eaten wheel of Gouda.

Source: USA Today

Dire warnings about dwindling landfill space and a flood of obsolete TVs entering the waste stream seem quaint when compared to the peril of space junk careening toward you at 17,000 miles per hour. And recent reports (like Scientific American pondering the danger it poses to the Hubble repair mission or Wired listing the weird items in orbit) indicate that there’s a lot more of it up there than you might expect:

There are about 19,000 objects in Earth orbit, most of it junk, Nicholas Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris, told the AP. In addition to 900 satellites and approximately 1,000 “large” (bigger than four inches, or 10 centimeters) remnants from the February 10 collision, the sum of what’s floating in the cosmos includes trash from manned space missions. Some of the satellite collision debris could remain in orbit for up to 10,000 years, we noted last week—and if more accumulates, the chances of additional crashes will increase by 2050, Johnson told the newswire. (The European Union has a “code of conduct for outer space activities” that includes taking “appropriate steps to minimize the risk of collision.”)

Does it freak you out that there’s so much trash flying around and around a few miles above our heads? Or that it could actually fall out of the sky and hit you?

The National Solid Wastes Management Association (NSWMA) has unveiled another component of its multi-pronged “Slow Down to Get Around” safety campaign. (NSWMA) has released a television ad urging motorists to drive slowly and with care when maneuvering around trash and recycling collection vehicles. The ad, which is available in a 30- and 60-second version, was created in part with support from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

According to an NSWMA press release, at least half a dozen waste collection workers have been killed during the past after being struck by a car. “Too many families have suffered the loss of a loved one through this sort of incident,” said NSWMA General Counsel David Biderman in the press release. “But we can reduce the frequency of this type of accident by educating the general public. We understand why such accidents occur. With some simple changes and better driver education, we can save many lives.”

NSWMA is encouraging private haulers and local governments to share copies of the ads with their local radio and television stations. To request a broadcast-quality copy of the ads, contact Biderman at davidb@envasns.org or (202) 364-3743.

Earlier this year, NSWMA aired “Slow Down to Get Around” radio ads in 10 cities, and the association also provides “Slow Down to Get Around” decals for haulers to place on their trucks. To request the decals, contact Niehaus at sales@niehauscorp.com or (859) 331-3733.