Local News
Trash
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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