Cardboard cut-outs/Cabin fever

Cardboard cut-outs

Discussion of last weekend’s housing forum having run its course, our epistolary companion and erstwhile colleague steered the email exchange to another topic of recent interest: gasoline conservation.

“Something else quite separate to think about,” our correspondent mused. “I wonder how many of us have SUVs basically so we can haul stuff to the dump? How many of us might get rid of the SUVs (and buy a Smart car) if Bainbridge Disposal expanded its curbside recycling pickup to include cardboard, beer and wine sleeves, grocery bags, etc. – the stuff we haul to the dump (and which prompts our wives to say, ‘You mean you want to buy a snazzy little car and use my good new car for dump runs?’). ’Twould be a great service to the community, and a nice tribute to Don Palmer. Editorial fodder?”

These musings, it should be noted, come from a gentleman who several years ago left the office Friday afternoon in a lumbering SUV, and returned the following Monday in a new Mazda Miata two-seater – top down, of course – wearing a jaunty scarf and a rakish grin. While we can’t speak to the domestic-duty dynamics of his household since that day (although his comments offer some clue), anyone who’s made their way out to Vincent Road on a weekend can attest to the amount of gasoline burned hereabouts ferrying old packing cartons and paper sacks to the recycler’s waiting totes.

So we put the question to Bainbridge Disposal: With the company’s fine curbside pickup service already covering our old spritzer cans, Cabernet bottles and L.L. Bean catalogs, why not add cardboard and grocery bags? The answer, Kelly Madayag told us, has nothing to do with the market aspects of recycling and everything to do with the physical practicality of handling such a bulky commodity.

“The only way we’d be able to do curbside is if we got huge trucks,” she said. “There’s so much cardboard out there, we’d have to take everything else off the trucks to be able to pick it all up.” As to grocery sacks, Kelly says it’s okay to put those in with your junk mail and old newspapers at the curbside – good news for anyone who’s been segregating bags into the cardboard pile.

So there you are – until you produce less of the stuff, you’ll be hauling waste cardboard to the dump yourself. And as to the utility of that Miata, that’s between you and the wife.

Cabin fever

Also through the transom Friday came a note from Jerry Elfendahl, reminding islanders of a special event in National Historic Preservation Month and the ongoing campaign to restore the old Camp Yeomalt cabin. He writes:

“In cooperation with the Bainbridge Island Historical Society and Historic Preservation Commission of our fair island, we’ll be sharing much of the story of the log cabin at Camp Yeomalt, known historically as Camp Major Hopkins, and sharing design ideas that will restore it to the real show- place it should be.

“The stories of the people directly and indirectly involved with that cabin is one of the most fascinating I’ve ever encountered surrounding any building we’ve helped preserve. The gathering is from 1 to 3 p.m. this Sunday afternoon, May 7 at the (also national historic registered) Bainbridge Island Filipino-American Community Hall on High School Road.

“Bring an old timer who can’t drive. Tell a friend.”

Consider yourself invited.

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