Last Saturday I packed up the last five years worth of retired computers and related peripherals and headed out to the county dump. Mama Wordbones has been badgering me to get rid of them since we first moved into this house two years ago.I finally got around to it. My prior reluctance to perform this task was my inability to accept the fact that these machines no longer held any value. I knew they were kaput but I kept hoping that someone would want them.
I finally accepted the fact that no one wants them and so off to the dump I went.
Of course they don’t call these places dumps anymore. They are called landfills and ours is run by the Department of Environmental Services.
A dump by any other name is still a dump. It is a place where you dump the stuff that you no longer want or need. It is the repository of last resort for unwanted items.
Our dump is more like an orphanage though. In the old days I recall driving out to open area with tractors and bulldozers and just dumping my stuff in a big pile. At Alpha Ridge there are individual stations for electronics, plastics, metals, paper, yard waste and so on.
The dumpster for computers and televisions goes to a recycler who will extract the last bits of value out of them.
It is all very efficient and very cool.
4 comments:
They also sell mulch very cheap (I think it is like $12/yard). I have a push mower that was rescued from that landfill, too.
I LOVE Alpha Ridge. During my bathroom renovation, they were a bright spot in the demolition. I have taken old computers, old paint, old toilets, fallen trees, and many other items. The efficiency of the place is quite impressive.
Often times, the resident drop-off area is manned by a kindly old man who is always willing to make your visit interesting. One time I had my pickup truck filled with a fallen cherry tree (damn carpenter ants). He asked me what kind of tree I had in the truck, and I replied, "cherry." He told me that they didn't take cherry trees. Given my state of exhaustion, my face went pale and all I could say is "WHAT?" He just smiled and laughed at me and said, " I was just kiddin' you, take it on back."
By the way WB, if you ever have the occasion to bring yard waste to the "dump" the wood pile has very much the "flavor of the old dump, where you pull up to the big pile o' branches and large front end loaders circling.
One recent development has been the "hand transfer" section. This is reserved for those residents dropping off construction/remodeling waste. The cost is, I belive, around $65/ton. This usually works out to between $9 - 16 dollars per load in my pickup truck. You get your vehicle weighed on the way in and on the way out. This creates a bit of a delay, but the attendent in the scale shack is always attentive and helpful.
And if anyone from Alpha Ridge reads this, I personnaly thank you for making the experience a good one time and again.
WB, were all those computer monitors beyond rescue? Maybe some folks at the Columbia Freecycle group would have wanted them. I've posted some items on the Freecycle group that I thought no one would want but most often someone always shows up wanting them.
The dump is great! I love the dump.
Does anyone remember the dump-nazi (like soup nazi) back in the yard waste area? I even like him.
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