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Local government in action
Last Thursday night we went to the Borough Assembly meeting on the proposed trash-picking ban. (For non-Fairbanks people on my friend list, a bit of explanation: outside the city limits, there's no garbage collection. Instead there are public dumpsters where people haul their own trash -- and also take anything that looks useful that someone else threw out. The Borough Assembly wants to ban this practice for various reasons -- too dangerous, contributes to pathological trash-collecting behavior and the creation of "private junkyards", etc.)
It's rather obvious where Fairbanksans' priorities lie. If you want to upset a bunch of people in Fairbanks ... threaten to take away their trash. The assembly meeting room was literally standing room only. There were about a hundred people signed up to talk -- public testimony went until after midnight. Needless to say, the proposed ordinance crashed and burned; after being told for five hours by the people who elected you that you're doing the wrong thing, even the most hardheaded assembly member can't do much except bow to public pressure.
It was kind of fun.
Honestly, the "recycle and reuse" mentality that prevails up here is one of my favorite things about living in Alaska. We've rescued hundreds of useful things from the dumpsters, including our 300-gallon heating oil tank, a perfectly useful couch, Orion's work jacket, a treadmill, brand-new power tools, end tables ... all sorts of stuff. Fairbanks doesn't really have much in the way of formal recycling programs; we're so isolated and so far from anywhere that it isn't even remotely cost-effective. The voluntary, grassroots sort of recycling that we practice doesn't cost the government a thing, and it keeps many tons of stuff out of the landfill, saves resources, and saves money for individuals too. It's a real no-brainer of a win-win situation.
It's rather obvious where Fairbanksans' priorities lie. If you want to upset a bunch of people in Fairbanks ... threaten to take away their trash. The assembly meeting room was literally standing room only. There were about a hundred people signed up to talk -- public testimony went until after midnight. Needless to say, the proposed ordinance crashed and burned; after being told for five hours by the people who elected you that you're doing the wrong thing, even the most hardheaded assembly member can't do much except bow to public pressure.
It was kind of fun.
Honestly, the "recycle and reuse" mentality that prevails up here is one of my favorite things about living in Alaska. We've rescued hundreds of useful things from the dumpsters, including our 300-gallon heating oil tank, a perfectly useful couch, Orion's work jacket, a treadmill, brand-new power tools, end tables ... all sorts of stuff. Fairbanks doesn't really have much in the way of formal recycling programs; we're so isolated and so far from anywhere that it isn't even remotely cost-effective. The voluntary, grassroots sort of recycling that we practice doesn't cost the government a thing, and it keeps many tons of stuff out of the landfill, saves resources, and saves money for individuals too. It's a real no-brainer of a win-win situation.
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