Of Trash Cans and Colonels

Our Garrison Commander is cool. He has a public question and answer website that he encourages every soldier and family member who's part of Ft. Bliss to frequent. People can post concerns they have, problems they're having, or things that they want to point out which are going particularly well, and Col Joe (properly, Colonel Joseph Simonelli) will weigh in with his two cents worth. It works really well, actually. I've got to hand it to Col Joe. He gets stuff done! Even better, he replies to almost everybody. (I only say almost because there's one woman who's a known trouble maker, and unfortunately is the wife of one of Thak's buddies, and Col Joe doesn't reply to her much anymore because, like I said, she is a known trouble maker. He replies to everyone else, without fail, and even to her on the rare occasion that she's not making trouble.)

I was reading Col Joe's site the other day, and a lot of people were complaining about their trash cans disappearing. Basically, I guess the post only got a recycling program a couple weeks ago, and they used to issue two trash cans (but no recycling cans) per family, but when they issued the recycling cans, they took away one trash can from each family, thus leaving them with one trash can and one recycling can. Now, mind you, these are very standard sized trash and recycling cans. They are identical to the ones issued by the city of El Paso, which are identical to the ones issued by the cities of Hinesville, Savannah, Austin, and probably everywhere else in the US, too. You get my point. We're not talking about cans that hold one bag or something. They're BIG. Well, people were saying things like, "Col Joe, how are we supposed to function with only one trash can for a family of five?? That's just unreasonable!" Col Joe, who lives on post himself, and is therefore in this situation along with all these others, told them that he's well able to keep his trash to one can's worth if he recycles diligently, and they should be, too. Good answer, sir. Of course, then we heard ten more lazy Army wives telling him how they didn't have time to recycle.

Needless to say, it all rubbed me the wrong way. I was talking about all this with Thak last night (As we were taking the trash and recycling out, of course!) and I asked him if he thought it took more time to recycle than to just send everything to the landfill. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. He says, "One way or another, you're throwing it in a can. How the hell would it take more time to throw it in one colored can versus another?" Right on. I agree. I've never understood the "I don't have time to recycle" argument, when it's used by people who have curbside pick-up, especially in places like this where it's SO easy. You don't have to separate anything. You just throw all your recyclables in your blue can together, and they go. It's so NOT difficult that I really wish they'd fine people for not doing it.

You know, in Toronto, Canada, there was a legislation proposed just a couple years ago, to pick up trash biweekly, and to charge people by how much they threw away. It would have been a great incentive for people to cut back. The concern that shot this legislation down in the end was, of all things, disposable diapers accumulating for two weeks between pick-ups, and how families with babies would be discriminated against by this legislation since they'd have to pay more than families without diapers to throw away. Can you believe that? They could have gotten on board with the Swedish bill of a few years ago, which would have granted tax credits to families who exclusively cloth diaper, and instead of tax credits, just emphasized (via TV commercials, billboards, etc) how you won't have to pay for more trash pick-up if you cloth diaper. Everyone wins.

Anyhow, I don't see why Ft. Bliss can't adopt a version of this. So if people want to be lazy and wasteful (and after living on post at a different post for three years, I can say there is NO subgroup of our society more wasteful than military families. You would be shocked by the mountains of trash these people generate.) then they can pay for additional trash pick-up. Want an extra trash can? That'll be $20 a month, ma'am. The thing is, this could totally be done. A lot of posts have gone to billing military families for overuse of utilities. They average what usage should be for their type of unit, and if they exceed it by more than, I think 20%, they will get billed for the overage. If they conserve, and come in 20% or more UNDER the average, they will get a check for how much they conserved. Again, this has been a very effective way of combating the wastefulness of the military family lifestyle. This trash thing should go similarly. Maybe I will propose THAT to Col Joe... but via email. I don't want to start a fight on his discussion board. Enough people do that as it is, and I'm in the minority as far as my views on this trash thing, so it wouldn't be pretty. I think Col Joe may see it my way, though. If this busy Colonel can recycle and cut his family's trash output by half, then there is no reason everyone else can't do the same thing. I think I will email him about it.