Gulls: Ticket to Thrive

The gull nests in the Farallons and hitches
truck rides on land (Shaffer/SFGate)

A GPS-tracking device traced a seagull's 94-mile journey from Candlestick Point to Modesto at the incredible speed of 60 miles per hour. [bold added]

[Biology professor Scott Schaffer] scrolled and zoomed in, tracing her 80-mile journey that appeared to start at the San Francisco Recology site near Candlestick Point. She went over the Bay Bridge, down Interstate 880 and onto Highway 580 before reaching a composting center in the Central Valley near Modesto. What threw him was her speed, which averaged 60 mph — clearly too fast for her to be flying herself. He soon confirmed she had backup, having hitched a wild ride on an 18-wheel garbage truck and staying overnight before flying back to her colony in the Farallones.

But this was no Pixar movie plot. Shaffer suspected the bird most likely became trapped under the layer of wire mesh lining the top of the truck while foraging for scraps. Yet, even more remarkable was the fact that she repeated the voyage the following day: going to San Francisco Recology to hitchhike down to the same composting facility, this time taking the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge while her mate watched over the nest in her absence.

Seagulls are protected by law, and their population in the Bay Area has exploded from 24 in 1980 to over 50,000. Their intelligence and adaptability--and lack of natural predators---augur for a population that has a long way to go before reaching its ceiling.

Satisfaction

Free shredding last Saturday

More than half of the companies (financial, telecommunications, medical) that I deal with have experienced data breaches. To allay customers' worries they always offer a year's free subscription to a security service that will monitor suspicious activity--for example, new credit cards taken out in customers' names--and provide insurance against ID theft losses.

I signed up for one or two of these protective services in the past but have stopped doing so. They always involve sharing with yet another company very detailed information, such as date of birth, social security number, bank account and brokerage account numbers, where one has lived for the past forty years, whether one owns or rents, etc. To me the risk of that new company being breached by a hacker or a crooked employee is greater than the benefit of that company's protection.

So I go back to the traditional method of checking credit card statements and reconciling (what's that kids? look it up) financial accounts monthly--stuff I had been doing for thirty years before the internet existed. Other than a few times my credit card number has been stolen to make some purchases for several hundred dollars, I have never had a problem with ID theft (knock on wood).

As for preventing leaks from paper sources, we bundle the documents that need to be destroyed--old tax returns are too voluminous for our home shredder--and take them to City Hall for Foster City's free-shredding Saturdays.

There was a grinding sound as the papers were lifted into the machine and pulverized. You can't get that satisfaction from cleaning a hard disk.

$20,000 Trash Cans That Probably Won't Solve the Problem

"Salt and pepper"--one of 3 designs (SF Public Works)

San Francisco has become the poster child for urban dysfunction.

A city like Detroit, where the collapse of its major industry led to decades-long impoverishment, is explicable; but San Francisco with its tech wealth, highly educated population, and cultural riches seems helpless to fix its homelessness, crime, and drug problems.

San Francisco can't even keep its streats clean and is experimenting (again) with a solution to filth: the $20,000 trash can.

San Francisco will try out six new models after spending 3½ years working on designs and $550,000 on a pilot program that seeks to fix the problems with the city’s current bins, which critics say are one culprit behind the city’s notoriously dirty streets. The green Renaissance models often overflow and are easily broken into, sometimes causing a bigger mess...

As a possible replacement to the current bins, Public Works is sending three custom-designed prototypes made by local companies and three off-the shelf models to locations around San Francisco.

Each custom prototype costs more than $10,000 — with one $11,000, another $18,800 and the third topping out at $20,900 per can. Last year the city said they would try to only spend $12,000 per prototype after pushback. Once mass-produced, each can would cost between $2,000 and $3,000 each.

Your humble blogger can see why the cans are so expensive, given that they are one-off prototypes and have custom specifications. [bold added]

Public Works officials...needed a can small enough to fit on a narrow sidewalk, secure enough so that someone couldn’t break in and with an opening slim enough so that people couldn’t reach inside to scavenge. The can had to hold a 32-gallon container, an electronic sensor that sends alerts when the bin is full and a recycling compartment on top.

San Francisco incentivizes scavenging because of its bottles-and-cans payouts, which far exceed the economic value of recycled materials. This payout structure in turn causes the overturning of trash cans, a contributor to dirty sidewalks and the source of the requirement to secure the cans and prevent reaching inside.

IMHO, as the Progressives like to say, the entire system is broken, and this $20,000 band-aid won't fix it.

No Lingering

For once politics and COVID-19 have been blown off the local front pages. The morning news reports 55 mph winds are buffeting the Peninsula. Fortunately, there are no reports of downed trees or power lines...yet.

All three of our garbage cans were intact, though many of our neighbors' had been knocked over. I would have straightened a few and retrieved the contents strewn about, but COVID-19 has made touching any surfaces potentially dangerous---that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Speaking of the coronavirus, I'll go for a long walk today. The more cautious ones in my circle have advised that I wear a mask all the time outdoors because of the micro-droplets that linger. With 55 mph winds there will be no danger in the air.

De-Cluttering Priority: Hazardous Waste

Fluorescent lights, medicines, solvents:
among the many things that can hurt us.

Over the years I’ve replaced our spent fluorescent tube lights in the kitchen, bathrooms, and garage, but I've never got round to disposing of them properly. They've been accumulating by the side of the house.

Our unused Epipens, inhalers, and expired medications, both prescription and over-the-counter, had filled two boxes in the garage. These are other items that by law should not be thrown into the trash.

I made an appointment yesterday to drop off all the above, as well as old paint, pesticides, and other chemicals at the San Mateo County hazardous waste facility. They took everything except the prescription pills which they said I could deposit in receptacles at CVS or Walgreens.

It was a good feeling to clear these materials from the house. De-cluttering is a perennial New Year’s resolution, and taking a small action every month, rather than making it a huge project, may be the best strategy for this procrastinator.

Holding Their Nose and Voting Republican

The Wall Street Journal highlights another consequence of the extended coronavirus lockdown: uncollected garbage. [bold added]

NYC sidewalk, Jan., 2020   (WNYC)

Philadelphia and Baltimore are among the hardest hit cities, though others, such as Atlanta and Nashville, also are having trouble. In Virginia Beach, Va., sanitation workers demanding hazard pay held a one-day work stoppage Aug. 19, putting trash collection behind for days. In New York City, garbage has piled up on some commercial corridors and residential streets after budget cuts reduced trash pickup.

Some residents are taking matters into their own hands. On two occasions the West Passyunk Neighborhood Association in South Philadelphia has trucked trash and recyclables in rented pickups to a city facility, after waiting in vain for municipal crews.

“Our streets looked like the city was abandoned,” said James Gitto, the association’s 29-year-old president. “It’s a daunting task when you look out and there is trash everywhere.”

At its worst, he said, the smell of rotten meat seeped into his home from trash bags piled by the street, and at night he could hear cats fighting over the spoils. He added that some garbage sat so long it stained the sidewalk.

Without knowing the answer in advance (except for New York), your humble blogger looked up the political affiliation of the mayors of the above-mentioned cities. They were overwhelmingly Democrats.

Keisha Lance Bottoms (D), Atlanta
Bernard "Jack" Young (D), Baltimore
John Cooper (D), Nashville
Bill de Blasio (D), New York
Jim Kenney (D), Philadelphia
Bobby Dyer (R), Virginia Beach

According to recent polls the Democrats have a good chance of winning the Presidency and sweeping Congress this year. Well, they might have done so despite the rioting and looting in cities they govern, but garbage in the streets? That may be enough for their constituencies to hold their nose and vote Republican.

Chipper on Saturday

It's been at least ten days since the tree has lain at the corner. Early Saturday morning the neighborhood woke to the grinding of heavy machinery.

Your humble blogger immediately knew what it was. A wood chipper was taking care of business.

Even if one has never seen a chipper live in operation, it's a familiar sound; the machine has become a clichéd method of disposal in movies and TV crime dramas.

22 years ago in the movie Fargo.

A Cheery Weekend

5-10 year-old non-functioning electronics

Bye-bye old tax returns

Foster City holds free e-waste and paper-shredding events at City Hall on a semi-annual basis. And so it was that we piled broken-down electronic equipment and old tax returns and medical files into the car this morning.

First was the disposal of documents, which we watched enter the shredding truck. Next was the equipment, from which we had removed any memory devices that could have contained sensitive information.

I had also been concerned that the recyclers wouldn't accept the mercury-containing fluorescent and compact-fluorescent bulbs, which many hardware stores now refuse to accept. No worries, they took everything.

It only took a few hours on a rainy Saturday, but the stress-relieving effects of clearing the clutter made for a cheery weekend.

Today's Fishwrap

...or birdcage liner.

I suppose all these old-newspaper references are lost to today's readership, because who reads newspapers anymore?

As for magazines, I use them to sop up the leaks from green "bio" bags that I store in the refrigerator while awaiting the weekly compost pickup. Case in point—-Time's cover story in the impending impeachment of Donald Trump: [bold added]

But Pelosi is actually playing a deeper game. Her aides note that she’s never ruled impeachment out. All she’s done, they say, is set a standard: increased popular support and some degree of GOP backing...

But there are already signs Pelosi’s standard could be met...Large majorities say they would favor Trump’s impeachment and removal from office if Mueller finds he authorized coordination with Russia or obstructed justice.

Now that the Mueller report has found no Russian collusion or obstruction of justice, I suppose the raison d'être for impeachment, using Nancy Pelosi's standard, has gone away.

Fortunately, I have lots of bio bags this week, so it’s not a total waste of Time.

Continuing the Decluttering

Continuing the decluttering begun earlier this week, we took a dozen pair of old shoes to the donation bin outside Marina Foods in San Mateo. The member of our household who thinks of these things tied the shoelaces so that the pairs would stay together. She's thoughtful that way.

Comments:
1) None of these shoes was mine.
2) The donated shoes were all in better shape than the ones I currently wear.
3) The younger generation is pickier (you may choose a different word, dear reader).
4) On the other hand, I could be a cheapskate.
5) Both (3) and (4) could be true.

Garbage Out

After months of procrastination, I called Recology for a bulky-item pickup. The original strategy of sorting the trash and clutter then calling the garbage company wasn't working. I needed a deadline--which was today--to focus.

Once started, the process was easier than expected. The guideline for the household was: don't agonize over an item, when in doubt, keep it. Even so we had enough for two pickups.

Out to the curb went an unrepairable exercise bike, used carpet, a beat-up particle-board cabinet, a Samsonite suitcase that had served us for 30 years but wasn't immortal, cracked plastic containers, and a tattered office chair, not to mention six trash bags. There was momentary suspense when the truck came: did we set out too much? was there an item that didn't fit the criteria? No, they took everything.

We spend most of our lives acquiring stuff, and happiness is achieved by getting rid of it.

The City Without Irony

Ziggy's Burgers has switched to washable plates and utensils,
which of course use hot water. I'm sure someone has done the
math: heating water vs recycling compostable plates. Hey, but
isn't there a water shortage? (SF Chronicle)

The one-Party City has lost its sense of irony:

S.F. invites world to join in zero-waste initiative

City officials want people to generate no garbage at all, or at least as little as physically possible, and they’re asking the rest of the world to join their cause. The ambitious zero-waste initiative, which would cut greenhouse gas emissions from landfills, will be promoted on the international stage next month when San Francisco hosts the Global Climate Action Summit.

Nearly 20 years after its introduction, the San Francisco recycling program still can't induce many of its own residents to sort trash into the blue, green, and black bins. Thankfully, despite increased calls from activists and government officials to impose fines, San Francisco hasn't yet taken that step.

On a related note, do a Google search on "sidewalk poop" and the first page is all about San Francisco (hey, we're number 1 in number 2!).

Before it preaches to the world about "zero waste", the progressive City by the Bay would do well to clean up its own house and streets.

Fat That You Don't Eat Can Be Harmful, Too

Air-frying pork belly produces a half-cup of fat.

Lately I've been using an inexpensive air fryer (really, it's a pot-shaped convection oven) for small roasts. It uses less energy than our large convection oven, and the grease is collected in a non-stick black pot. I no longer pour the grease down the drain.

The grease goes into a pyrex dish, hardens in the refrigerator, and the solids are dumped into the green compost bin. Having to call the plumber three times to clear the kitchen line at over $300 a pop (2014, 2016, and 2018) forces one to change.

If you won't stop pouring grease down the drain for yourself or your landlord, dear reader, stop doing it for the community. [bold added]

Part of the "fatberg" from the London sewer. (WSJ photo)

cities haven’t been able to stop people from pouring grease down the drain, resulting in catastrophic buildups of sludge in sewer systems.

When poured down the drain, the fat coats the sides of the water line, gradually building up and narrowing pipes. Grease that doesn’t stick to residential pipes eventually makes its way to the city sewer system, where it can accumulate to form massive blockages. Clogs have gotten so big that workers have to use shovels to get the fat out.

London officials had to excavate a 130-ton “fatberg” from the Whitechapel sewer last year. The monstrous glob was the size of 11 double-decker buses and consisted mostly of grease runoff and trash.

In Baltimore, officials last year had to scrape out a 24-inch pipe in midtown where grease had congealed, clogging 85% of the pipe. After noticing that there had been some overflows around the city center, the public-works department sent a camera down and discovered a 20-foot long buildup of fat, according to Jeffrey Raymond, chief of communications at the Baltimore Department of Public Works. “It was really pretty shocking,” he said.

After reading this article, I poured an extra-large dose of enzyme cleaner down the kitchen drain and let it sit overnight. Despite the resolve to change, however, the plumbers are still on speed-dial.

If You Won't Obey, You Just Need a Behavioral Change

We've written before how the recycling racket is uneconomic to consumers, businesses, and the recyclers themselves.

We have previously noted how Yale Law Professor Stephen Carter tried to comply but finds the recycling regime to be "heavy-handed, coercive, distant and thick with detailed rules."

Composting (green bin) is different in SF than in my town.
(Examiner photo)

Now we discover that the residents of San Francisco, the Vatican of the green religion, are recycling less than half of what should be put in the green and blue bins. According to Debbie Raphael, director of the City's Department of the Environment, [bold added]

a survey by the department showed people knew why they should recycle and how, but didn’t do it because “it’s too much trouble, it’s just too much work.”

“Here, we have a system with the ultimate convenience. Everybody’s got the bins. We have signs to show you. We have outreach campaigns. And they still don’t want to do it because it is still not convenient enough” Raphael said. “Whatever that culture of convenience is here, we’re up against it in a big way.”

The deplorable people are stubborn as mules. They do not think it's convenient to unwrap stale hamburger and throw the slimy meat into a maggot-filled green bin, the plastic film into the black cart, and spend a minute washing their hands with hot water and anti-bacterial soap. Yes, I'm speaking from experience.

Because mere encouragement hasn't worked, the next step in the Progressive playbook is to force them to obey:

Supervisor Hillary Ronen suggested The City ramp up enforcement. “It just seems like we should have been in the enforcement compliance phase a while ago,” Ronen said. “It’s pretty outrageous that 60 percent of what’s going to the landfill is still recycling and compost in San Francisco in 2018 after all of the work that both Recology and the Department of the Environment has been doing and I think it’s time to step it up.”

She added, “We just need a behavioral change.”

Bring out the cattle prods.

Equivalent Caution

Contents of old hard drives were copied to the current
computer using a Sabrent docking station.

On Saturday we took three boxes of electronics equipment to the local YMCA for its e-waste fundraiser.

The most time-consuming part was separating the wheat from the chaff. We spent several hours going through boxes of retired/broken computers, disk drives, printers, keyboards, and cables. A few still-useful items were rescued.

Also, we finally downloaded and wiped data from a couple of hard disks that were to go to the recycler.

"Let the buyer beware" is a hoary principle of commerce. In contemporary America disposing of the stuff so carefully acquired requires an equivalent caution.

Gaia is Grateful, Too

When Microsoft ended its support for Windows XP earlier this year, I mothballed the 7-year-old Dell desktop, except for a few simple word-processing and spreadsheet applications that don't require an Internet connection.

Yes, I should probably scrap the Dell and its even older Okidata C6100 laserjet, both of which emit alarming noises at times---especially since a new, much faster system can be purchased for about $1,000.

But the fix-don't-replace mentality is deep-rooted. Uncertain about the result, I spent the weekend installing Windows 7 (disk cost, $100) on the old computer. The printer driver, Office 2007, and Quicken 2008 were reinstalled, and the data files were backed up and restored. Et voila! The set-up should be good for another two years at least.

And mother Gaia will be grateful, too, that her landfill was spared. © 2014 Stephen Yuen

Green Lining

Scraps aren't smelly when frozen.

During the hot summer the compost bin is quite odoriferous. If we deposited only yard trimmings, it would hardly smell.

On the other hand table scraps, which now go into the bin, become very ripe after a few days. Ants are the first to invade, and if a stiff wind should blow the lid open, birds and vermin swoop in. We now put organic garbage in the freezer until the night before the weekly pick-up.

Both the time spent on garbage and our energy consumption have gone up, but at least we can pat ourselves on the back for being green.

Another green lining: we have stopped mocking people who freeze their jeans.

Keeping The Feelings Going

Every week we sort garbage into three carts.

Duke professor Michael Munger examines the economics and logic of recycling. He concludes that mandatory recycling, which has spread to more and more communities including ours, is not economically justified even if we make allowances for a) the higher "true" cost of landfill sans recycling and b) the under-recognized value of some recyclables (e.g. aluminum cans).

For many people recycling has become a moral, even religious, imperative immune to analysis. And so it is that we have "a long line of cars, engines idling, waited to pull up to the recycling facility" and some communities encouraging the use of the dishwasher to clean plastics and cans before they are dumped in the blue containers.

Much of our motivation to recycle stems from a desire to feel good about ourselves, and now it appears that we are willing to pay an ever higher price to keep those feelings going. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

Drought Forestalled

The rain and cool temperatures brought welcome relief from the summer heat wave. In San Francisco this is shaping up to be one of the wettest Junes ever. For the first year since scientists began keeping records in 1849 there will be more precipitation in June than there was in January. There won't be water rationing this year, so I won't have to make tough choices between lawn, laundry, and lavatory.

Things are looking up--or should I say down--in other areas as well. Slowly, ever slowly, the unemployment rate falls. In San Mateo County the percentage of people looking for work is a still-high 8.1%, but the trend is in the right direction. On Friday I paid $3.599 for a gallon of regular, the lowest it's been this year.

If stocks continue the rebound begun yesterday, that will be icing on the cake.

Better garbage service, too: Recology took the box. Allied Waste wouldn't have.

Green Flim-Flam

I often look askance at green enthusiasts who claim that environmental restrictions help the economy and reduce expenses. I don't mind spending a little more time and money so that we burn less fossil fuels or keep our air, water, and general surroundings clean. But when costs rise by more than 50% and I have to spend three hours a week (from last year's one) recycling the household garbage I have to wonder whether I'm better off than before. And if everyone is burdened similarly, it's very doubtful whether societal welfare is improved. (I'm assuming that the health and safety of the community are not in danger.)

There's evidence that environmental initiatives turn out to cost not just a little but a lot more,than the advocates forecast. Jobs lost in traditional energy sectors far outnumber so-called "green jobs" gained as traditional sectors are taxed and regulated out of existence. This happens so often that I think that the flim-flam artists have found a new home in the green movement. They supposedly have good intentions, so their original snow sales jobs are less scrutinized. They are never responsible for the cost over-runs: why they don't meet the numbers is the fault of consumers who are not sorting rubbish in the right cartons or not turning the furnace down at night or not driving the kids around in underpowered tin cans.

The switch to our new garbage-and-recycling company held a lot of promise. Now that the numbers are in, I'm not so cheerful. Last year Allied Waste billed $19.31 per month. In November Recology gave us a 64-gallon can, which is larger than Allied Waste's 45-gallon container. Recology's January charge was $27.46, a 42% increase, perhaps explainable by the bigger container and weekly (from biweekly) recycling.

Allied Waste invoice

First Recology bill

Recology has just billed us another $8.10 per month, retroactive to February. Our cost has ended up being nearly double that of a few months ago.

Recology back billing

What's more irritating is the time devoted to recycling kitchen scraps, which used to be dumped in the garbage. Now we must put old food, including bones, meat, and food-soiled paper products, with the yard trimmings. But we are forbidden to wrap them in plastic, nor is it acceptable to have them ripening outdoors in the green cart. I initially stored the scraps in paper bags in the refrigerator, but the messiness prompted me to buy moisture-resistant BioBags that are, of course, friendly to Mother Earth but not my pocketbook.

I wonder if there's a "pig man" on the Peninsula?