Take Your Own Trash to the Dump

I grew up in Gloucester County where we had a clothes line in the back yard . . . that is until my Dad brought home a dryer from a laundromat at Fort Eustis where he worked as an electrician . . . and where one of our Saturday rituals was taking the trash to the dump. While the dryer came into our lives sometime in the late 1960s, my parents still use the dump. For free. You can still take your trash to the dump in Gloucester at no charge.

Here in James City County, where I have lived for thirty years, there are about a half dozen garbage collection companies. My husband is a city boy and thinks that garbage collection by a hauler is "the way things are supposed to work." After years of paying around $80 every other month for this service, I put my foot down. We recycle and we compost. We seldom had more than one kitchen garbage bag of trash in our can. We could take our measly amount of trash to the James City County Collection Center, located about 3 miles from our home, for $4. Actually, it's two big black bags for $4. We have discovered that we take a single bag (just $2 -- they punch one $4 ticket on the first trip, and take the ticket on the second) to the Collection Center about once every 2 to 3 weeks. Big savings.

I thought about this today while hanging my clothes outdoors on the line to dry. Another simple living, so 1960s, savings plan. While listing to the birds and enjoying the 70 degree temperatures and breeze, my solitude was interrupted twice by the roar and back-up alarms of BFI or Suburban Disposal or whoever was picking up the garbage from my neighbors' houses.

It's America and that's freedom, but does it make sense? My neighbors are at work earning money to pay the $60 to $80-some that the various garbage haulers charge, earning money to pay for the lawn service. Yes, that's freedom and this is America, but I guess you can hear me shaking my head by now.

By the way, there is a provocative article on freedom in the current issue of Orion: "The God Unbound" by Jay Griffiths.

More on Williamsburg Wordpecker: Don't Send Your Leaves to the Landfill!