And so it piled up to the ceilings:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the window and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Unlike Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout, who famously would not take the garbage out, Portland is taking steps to join Seattle, San Francisco, and Dubuque (. . . Dubuque?) by letting residents include food waste with their curbside recycling:
After five years of delays, Portland is ready to try out collecting food waste from residents at curbside for recycling into compost, addressing the biggest glob left in the city's garbage.
Including dinner scrapings, meat, egg shells, coffee grounds and other food scraps in the curbside yard debris cart isn't a revolutionary concept. Seattle and San Francisco are doing it; so is Dubuque, Iowa.
The finished compost benefits farms and wineries. Recycling food waste and wastepaper, which makes up just over a fifth of the region's garbage, prevents it from stewing in a landfill, where it produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
Here's hoping Portland fares better than Sarah Cynthia:
At last the garbage reached so high
That it finally touched the sky.
And all the neighbors moved away,
And none of her friends would come to play.
And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,
"OK, I'll take the garbage out!"
But then, of course, it was too late. . .
The garbage reached across the state,
From New York to the Golden Gate.
And there, in the garbage she did hate,
Poor Sarah met an awful fate,
That I cannot now relate
Because the hour is much too late.
But children, remember Sarah Stout
And always take the garbage out!
Paper or plastic? Or neither? Environmentalists and grocery chains aren't sure if paper grocery bags are much more environmentally friendly than plastic bags in the long run, but State Sen. Mark Haas is working a bill through committee that would outlaw single-use plastic bags at check-out.
The tradeoff:
It's true paper bags biodegrade, and most plastic bags don't. Degrading is a plus if a bag is littered, [DEQ policy analyst David] Allaway said, but a pitfall in a landfill, where it produces methane, a greenhouse gas.
The biggest plastic bag drawback: They're littered more often, fly away from landfills and garbage cans and often end up in the ocean, where plastic makes up the vast majority of floating debris. There they fill the gullets of sea turtles that mistake them for jellyfish, entangle sea birds and contribute to the garbage gyre in the North Pacific.
Wondering what "the garbage gyre" is? It's this. Congratulations, humans.
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Update: Last month I raised an eyebrow about some of the built-in side effects of Oregon's business energy tax credit (BRTC). This week, the House Revenue Committee unanimously passed a BETC reform measure:
The bill drastically cuts tax credits for the projects that have caused much of the cost increases and problems hindering the program housed within the Oregon Department of Energy.
Last session, the Legislature passed a bill that would have reined in the tax credits, but the bill was vetoed. Since then the cost of the program has nearly doubled. House revenue committee members put BETC reform on their top list of priorities for this session and have worked closely with the Governor and Senate counterparts to craft the new legislation.
One of the concerns addressed in the bill was breaking up large projects into several small projects to get additional and unwarranted BETC credits. That practice will be curtailed by this new law.
An Oregon couple have been convicted of criminally negligent homicide for not getting medical treatment for their 16-year-old son, who died in 2008 of a urinary-tract blockage. Instead, Jeffrey and Marci Beagley engaged in so-called faith healing.
The Portland Oregonian writes that because the Beagleys have no prior convictions, they are likely to face 16 to 18 months in prison. The maximum sentence is 10 years.
The Oregon Legislature outlawed spiritual treatment as a defense in 1999.
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If a tree falls in the forest, can you sue it? A Prospect man says yes, after injuries caused when a 32-foot tree fell on him while he was in his truck in Rogue River National Forest.
He contends the Forest Service had marked the tree for removal and that the logging company was supposed to have cut it down before the accident.
The lawsuit, which names the U.S. government and Dodenhoff Logging Co. as defendants, seeks $900,000 in medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering.
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Oregon gas pricesdropped a cent and a half, this week, to $2.733/gal. The national average is $2.660/gal.
Cheapest reported pump price (tie): $2.55/gal, at Bob's Auto and Gas, 9694 SE 82nd Ave near SE Otty Rd, in Portland; the Arco station, 7509 NE M L King Jr Blvd & NE Lombard St, also in Portland; and the Arco station, 61122 S US-97 Bus & Murphy Rd, in Bend.
Highest reported pump price (tie): $2.99/gal, at the Arco and 76 stations, I-5 Exit 19, in Ashland.
Kicking the kicker down the road? The Salem Democrats want to take a shot at the state's only-in-Oregon "kicker law," but the timing is tricky:
Go after it this year, so soon after the passage of Measures 67 and 67, and anti-tax activists can be counted on to complain that all state Democrats want to do is tax, tax, tax.
Quote of the day:
"There's broad agreement that the kicker is stupid fiscal policy," said House Speaker Dave Hunt.
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StS True Animal Story: And finally this item, presented without comment:
If you trust a rodent to predict when winter will end, how about an ape to guide your Super Bowl winner selection?
The Oregon Zoo's youngest orangutan, Kutai, showed no hesitation Friday in selecting an Indianapolis Colts T-shirt during the annual football forecasting event at the zoo.
The zoo says Kutai has predicted the winner in four of the past five Super Bowls, including the New York Giants' win over the New England Patriots in 2008. His only loss came last year when he incorrectly picked the Arizona Cardinals over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Similar to Punxsutawney Phil's yearly predictions on the arrival of spring, the zoo's orangutans have been predicting Super Bowl outcomes.
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Tune in to the Carl + Christine Show on KPOJ AM620 tomorrow morning between 7.30 and 8.00 to hear Carl, Christine, and Paul match wits with TJ on the weekly Spanning the State Limerick Challenge!
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