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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 2012)
Local News Trash continued from page 1 want us to recycle and separate it. And that food thing is adding insult to injury. I’m already pay- ing for a bigger can. We should be getting a break on our bill if you want us to do all the work.” Frustrated with the bags of garbage piling up, she called the city’s hotline. “I called and they told me – Take the other stuff to the dump! Are you serious?” Even though food waste can go into compost, garbage cans still contain organic, decomposing materials, Baker points out. Food wrappings, medical waste, pet waste and disposable diapers, for example, must go into the garbage. Since composting started, she says, a lot more gulls are visible in her neighborhood. She fears other scavengers will follow. “What is going to happen when it gets warm?” Baker asks. “It’s cold right now, but just wait until summer comes. We’re going to have maggots, flies, rats. What are they trying to do—start a pandem- ic?” bors are allowing her to put some garbage in their can. She doesn’t put the diapers in her neighbors bin, she says, just cleaner garbage. Lauren Norris, sustainable liv- ing outreach manager for the Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, said just 20 percent of calls to the compost- ing hotline, have been complaints, although the full data is not yet in. Norris says the city is reaching out to help people solve prob- lems. Already, representatives have visited 74 community events and reached 5,000 peo- ple. And this spring 500 volunteers and master recyclers Dee Baker are planning a massive outreach, with the goal of reaching 40,000 diapers sit around for two weeks, people. which attracts everything and the The volunteers will be trained smell is horrendous.” to help people solve garbage To try to reduce the smell they problems, and they will be paid moved the garbage bin farther $2 for everyone they contact in from the house. It means extra person and 50 cents for leaving a work, yet still doesn’t solve the door hanger. To volunteer call problem. Is Banks worried about 503-823-7202 or email wastein- summer? fo@portlandoregon.gov “Portlanders are recy- clers,” Norris says. “Ninety-five percent of Portlanders recycle and it’s a core part of who they are…People are trying to make it work. A small -- Dee Baker percentage of people are upset.” Norris says disposable diapers were a concern for her team, but the pilot “Yes! Yes! Yes!” she says. “It project that tested the plan in four would be nice if they came up neighborhoods across the city, with special rules for daycares and didn’t find problems. schools, and if they would take our “Generally speaking, people diapers away every week.” were not as concerned about it as Jodie Throckmorton, who also we thought they would be. It is a runs a home daycare, in Southeast tougher situation and they may Portland, says all but one of her need to get a larger bin. parents uses disposable diapers. “It’s important to keep the lid That means overflowing garbage, closed and you might have to she says. For the moment, neigh- move your bin farther from your ‘I called and they told me – Take the other stuff to the dump! Are you serious?’ Lakecia Banks and her mother Danetta own Smiling Faces, an in- home daycare on N.E. Killingsworth Street. Banks says they were in favor of the move to two-week garbage pickup, which they hope will be good for the environment. However, they are concerned about odor and pests. “It has been a real problem,” Banks says. “We’re having dirty On the sorting line. house – maybe to the far side of your garage. In the summer, keep- ing the bin in a shady place will help reduce the smell.” About 7 percent of people in the pilot did need larger garbage cans. And Jackie Lang of Waste Man- agement, one of the 19 haulers who pick up Portland’s waste, said from 5 percent to 7 percent of her customers have increased their can size. For $5 you can arrange with your hauler to leave out an extra bag. Low-income families with excess medical waste can get help to upsize their garbage can for no extra cost. Call 503-823-7202 to apply. Baker wonders if someone is making a profit from her prob- lem. And she’s not alone in that. Comments on articles about com- posting usually feature someone who believes haulers are making big bucks from the change to a two-weekly garbage collection schedule. Lang says that’s a myth. The changes haven’t saved money for haulers. The trucks are making the same number of trips because they are picking up compost and yard waste every week now, she says. “The food and the yard debris still have- to go to the transfer sta- tion every week. It’s changed our routes a lot, but there are no cost savings for the hauler.” On comment threads some posters say they are so angry that they dispose of trash in the recy- cling or the compost, hidden in a brown paper bag. But Lang says she has not seen an increase in problems. “There are always contamina- tion issues,” she says. “It’s important. But to think everyone is going to get everything in the right bin every time: That’s not realistic. “On the whole people say it is getting easier and easier. Chang- ing behaviors always takes time and education. But what we’re hearing is that it’s getting easier. People want to do the right thing.” Celebs continued from page 1 were valuable in celebrity gossip culture. She cited examples of photos of George W Bush cutting brush in a cowboy hat and the “Mission Accomplished” moment when Bush wore a pilot suit, as well as a lot of fighting language coming from the adminis- tration as examples of hyper-masculinity. “Despite the showroom presences of Con- doleezza Rice and Karen Hughes, girls and women were especially and utterly irrele- vant,” Douglas said. “We had no role in judging or influencing what the government did. “But we are still part of the nation,” she added, “and common-shared stories about which we have strong opinions, are part of the glue that binds us together.” While celebrity journalism provided uni- versal stories for women to discuss their values, Douglas feels the vast majority of what is communicated to women in celebri- ty journalism is negative. On the screen she presented many magazine covers with strict messages about how women should be judged. “Women are to be judged first and fore- most by their appearances,” Douglas said. “The corporately defined standards of beau- ty remain very narrow, very white, and impossible to achieve. “[T]he line between being too thin and too fat is razor thin,” Douglas continued, “a policing and disciplining regime of body surveillance [...] has utterly naturalized in celebrity journalism.” Many readers consume celebrity content with a grain of salt, but the messages are very strong. For example, she said, these magazines prescribe that all female celebri- ties, and therefore women in general, should Women are to be judged first and foremost by their appearances base their happiness on having a husband and children. “No woman is treated as complete with- out a guy,” Douglas said. “Losing your man is a big tragedy, but remaining childless is a gigantic atomic disaster. “Julia Roberts was constantly hounded about having kids until her twins arrived,” Douglas explained. “George Clooney, by contrast, is not hounded about when he will reproduce.” Douglas’ talk focused on an era when social media were not yet popular; after the lecture a Q-and-A session led by Professor David Domke, chair of the UW Department of Communication, focused on celebrity culture and social media. “I’ve seen a number of people comment on how they felt more connected to Whit- ney Houston’s death through their Facebook communities than any kind of tra- ditional media environment,” Domke said. “So it seems that there is a relational capital with celebrities, that’s greater than it’s ever been, because everyone can quickly post something that is about that person.” With celebrity news more dominant, Dou- glas said, there has been a decrease in international news. “The great irony of our time,” Douglas said, “is that just when a globe-encircling grid of communications technology sys- tems, satellites, light-weight digital cameras, and the like indeed make it possi- ble for Americans to see and learn more than ever before about the rest of the world, Americans have been rendered more isolat- ed and less informed about global politics by our media institutions.” Randal Beam, UW communication pro- fessor, asked Douglas: “I’m sort of wondering if the impression you’re getting about the availability of international news has more to do with what you looked at as potential sources than what’s actually out there,” mentioning that sources like (Eng- lish-language) Al-Jazeera are available to most people now. Douglas responded by saying she is more interested, rightly or wrongly, in common experiences that people share through the media, and that what we have today with the web is much different than when Amer- icans watched three TV stations and heard a common story. Our common story, according to Douglas, covers in much more detail in the lives of celebrities than international events, and this trend is detrimental to American socie- ty. To learn more about Susan Douglas, check out her website at http://www.susanj- douglas.com Sean Duncan is a student in the Universi- ty of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory. February 22, 2012 The Portland Skanner Page 3
