Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Stewart Welch
Stewart Welch
There’s an ancient tale that a century ago, an elderly woman would travel the long road to the river each day to collect water in two buckets, which she balanced on each end of a pole on her back.
One bucket was new and the other quite old and leaked a bit. Each day when she returned home, the new bucket was full, but the old bucket was half empty. The old bucket felt bad, but the wise woman explained the next day, “See all the flowers along the side of the road? You helped water them and, in doing so, have made what would be a difficult daily drudgery into a beautiful and peaceful journey.”
I tell this story because, in a way, it helps explain ‘why and how’ we can all help solve a community problem. Recently, AmWaste has experienced “growing pains” related to their service. The city, especially executive administrator Janet Forbes, has been working closely with AmWaste to resolve the problems.
We have a new district supervisor at AmWaste, who is looking at restructuring routes to help them be more efficient. They are also working hard to get more equipment (there have been supply-chain issues) and to hire more personnel (there is also a significant shortage of candidates).
All of these are AmWaste issues ,but there is one problem where all our residents can help: breaking down boxes. In the new age of Amazon online ordering, box deliveries have increased 100-fold, creating a massive change in recycling opportunities.
Here are two good reasons we should go to the (minimal) trouble of flattening our boxes. First, if you have more boxes than will fit in the cans, AmWaste personnel must spend more time loading trash into the trucks.
For those who bring their cans to the street, remember that the cans are auto-lifted to dump in the truck — a relatively quick process. If they must then hand-load boxes, it takes more time and routes may not get completed. For back-door service, boxes outside the cans may require more than one trip, which can significantly increase the time spent.
The second reason is that boxes that aren’t broken down can quickly fill up these smaller trucks, requiring them to take a lot of extra time to dump their loads and return to their routes. A bonus reason to break down our boxes is that this makes the recycling process more efficient.
If each of us takes a little bit of time, we can help make the daily journey for our AmWaste workers more peaceful and enjoyable.
So what do you say? Are you willing to pitch in and help?
