What kind of Trash do you have?

So imagine yourself on a Tuesday night getting ready to take out the garbage so that you don’t have to get up at 4AM to beat the garbage truck. You have two cans to take out and then you have to drag out the 3 bins of recycling. That is a real bummer isn’t it.

QUIT WHINNING YOU CRY BABY! Look at what we have to go through to get rid of garbage.



This is the trash “bin” in our dorm. You first have to take a class before you can throw out any garbage, next you have to actually pay attention during class (another milestone for me), and finally you have to follow through on the new found wisdom from the class.

We have categories of trash here in MacTown:

Batteries
Aerosols
Fabric
Skua
Food Waste
Non-Recyclable
Mixed Paper
Plastic
Glass
Aluminum Cans
Burnables
Wood
Ferrous Metal
Non Ferrous Metal
Medical Waste
Cardboard

And likely a few more that I have forgotten since I went to garbage school. Now think back to the last thing that you threw away 20 minutes ago. What was it? What bin would you have thrown it in? Now are all of you starting to understand why Paula is the recycling queen? All of this thinking hurts. I just want a single garbage can, no decisions needed. I’ll gladly get up at 4AM to meet the truck!

Actually I am just whining for the sake of whining. The waste program in Antarctica has won awards for their recycling programs. If every town did what we do down here, landfills would be allot less prevalent. The only category that you see listed above that goes into a landfill is Non-Recyclable. And that is a very low percentage of our total garbage output.

But as you can imagine this whole process is a very labor intensive one. First there are the bins for disposal. The resident must take the time to sort their trash properly and dispose of it in the right bin. This is also true at all of the workplaces as well. Next the janitorial staff has to empty a dozen or so bins instead of taking out just “the garbage can”. There are dumpsters all around town for the different categories of waste. Most are strategically placed. There is a Medical Waste dumper outside Medical. We have a large Ferrous and Non-Ferrous metal bins outside the Heavy Shop. And again with many different types of bins they all must be collected and taken to the waste barn with a fork truck. Next at the waste barn is where the labor intensive part really begins. With the exception on Non-Recyclable, Medical Waste, and Food Waste every piece of garbage gets sorted and packaged for shipment back to the US. Plastics are sorted for the recycling types and compacted for sale upon return to the states, and all of the other categories are handled in the same way.

The only category that you might note recognize at first is Skua. A Skua is a native bird to the McMurdo area. It is a water bird that nests and lives in our area during the summer months. Think of a Sea Gull with a pissed off attitude, no fear of people, and they are protected by the Antarctica Treaty. It is a wonderful bird. If he/she decides to sit in the middle of the roadway you have to drive around them, and they are not easily intimidated. And did I mention that intimidating them is strictly forbidden in the Antarctica Treaty. (I want to be on the committee the next time the treaty is renegotiated).



So the Skua is a scavenger. Which is its one redeeming quality. They will sit on the roof of the galley and wait for some new person to walk out of the Galley with a plate of food in hand. The newbie will usually get about 10 steps and then WHAM! Plate of food is on the ground and the Skua is having dinner and any witnesses are having a great laugh at the expense of stupid people. But this is the premise of Skua in the waste system. It is the scavenging of good stuff and letting other people us it. Jamie would love this. Let’s say that you have worn holes in all of your T-shirts and you can’t find the time to get to Wal-Mart for some new ones. Well instead you go to Skua. Someone else’s trash is now your treasure. You can get cloths, books, small appliances, electronics, dishes, food that is still in the package, and many more gems.








So are you getting the idea of all of this now? It will be very convenient for me when we get off of the ice because I will just use the garbage can, and a few recycling bins that are around. But at the same time it will be sad because I know that this stuff usually can go to a better place.

8 days left.
R.J.