Portland has so many environmental types..it's way over the top. I can't even get rid of broken appliances, broken or old furniture, anything other than normal trash without paying a big pick-up fee. They have the Al Gore mentality about alleged policies to assist in "protecting the environment" here. The trash in Oregon has to be divided by type, and if anything is deposited that is not "allowed" one can be fined for each unauthorized trash item.
In New Orleans you can practically put dead bodies on your curb for trash pickups. They take anything. Here in Portland trash pick-up is 10 times more expensive than in New Orleans and is only conducted once a week (it's twice each week in New Orleans and in almost every other city in the U.S). New Orleans gives each user a huge roll cart to use to place trash into and also allows residents to place on the curb anything they wish to dispose of. Portland has three different cans...one for trash, one for yard waste and one for recyclable items. In my view it is overkill and an excuse to charge exorbitant fees to residents, most of whom dislike this set up as much as I but who fear complaining. Too, their list of "forbidden items" is long, so not much of what the homeowner wants to be rid of is eligible for pickup. The residents here do not wish to be labeled as "global warmer deniers" or as "environmentally unfriendly", so they hold their tongues and pay the fees for awful garbage service.
I have so much junk in my garage, including many items broken during my move here, and I can't economically dispose of them. To do so myself would mean to load it in my car in stages and to haul it to an "authorized dump" (a place that is run by the city and which charges enormous fees for each item dumped) and pay a big fee for them to take it, and I can't fit some of my junk, like a sofa, in the car to take them. My other option is to hire someone to haul it at even greater cost or to pay that garbage collection service company that picks up trash here each week an outrageous amount to take it way when making the normal trash day pick-up. The principle of being served so badly this way and having little fair recourse is frustrating.
Now I have a space heater to get rid of as of yesterday (Jane uses one downstairs as a supplement heating and it just broke, which precipitated this rant today about the trash pickup policies of Portland), and don't know where to throw it away without paying 25 dollars or more to do so. In Portland they think the world will end in heat waves if I dump my space heater for them to pick up and dispose of. It "burns me up" to see such stupidity. So alas! I will resort to civil disobedience...
I will sneak the broken space heater into my at nightfall and find a dumpster to deposit it. The commercial businesses pay a flat fee for real garbage pick-up
(the kind residents here don't get) so putting it in one of their dumpsters, though illegal, is a reasonable option. You may call me 'The Dunpster Rebel' if you wish...or wait to see if I am nabbed by the police while making my heater deposit and just call me a common criminal.. In that case my usual title of 'Just Plain Stupid' will be verified again.
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