Editors Note: County should be part of the garbage solution

There is a beautiful waterfall near Shiraz, Iran, where I once travelled.

The water cascades hundreds of feet over a sheer red cliff, then tumbles through a creek among flowering bushes and moss-covered rocks. Along with the garbage.

Plastic bottles, wrappers, diapers and various refuse litter the trail to the Maroon waterfall and creek. This is a popular but remote area, so there are no garbage cans. No one to look after you. You are supposed to take out the trash you take in.

Closer to home I’ve learned don’t mess with people’s garbage. That’s what the Flathead County solid waste board has been trying to do, by forcing a plan to consolidate trash collection sites in Bigfork and Lakeside.

People at a solid waste board meeting last week in Kalispell spoke vehemently against the proposed plan, which took in very little public comment prior to it being written by what Sue Hopkins of Lakeside called an “out of state, out of touch” consultant.

Hers was one of the more reasonable comments toward the solid waste board and various stakeholders. One man, however, told the board all the “fluffy words makes me want to puke.”

Well, kind sir, if you do, I’m sure the board can tell you where to do that, too.

I was embarrassed by the lack of civility shown toward our county commissioner on the board and the other assembled officials. Sure, people are ticked off that they didn’t get a voice in the process, and they don’t want their garbage messed with. But I applaud Paul Mustachio’s measured response toward the county solid waste board, and his reasonable discourse last week on the merits of placing the consolidation plan in a bear-proof Dumpster. Mustachio gets his point across and he doesn’t have to resort to threats, accusations and displays of uncontrollable personal behavior. Or puking.

I can’t imagine what the Miami, Fla., consultant was thinking of Montanans after he heard from one of our Flathead County residents who said she Dumpster dives with bare feet for lost treasure in Somers.

It occurred to me that many of the people at that meeting might just have been conservatives who want less government and more control of their personal lives. Well, if that’s the case, they should take control of their trash by recycling more, wasting less, and planning their trip to the dump with their trip to Costco, where they can load up on products in boxes, crates and bottles that will, of course, wind up in the Flathead County landfill.

What really irked me was how some residents threatened the solid waste committee that if the green box trash sites were closed, their garbage would end up “at the end of their driveways and up mountain roads.”

Yes, that’s a good idea. Blame the government for what we can’t take care of ourselves — and then blame them for the mess we’ve created out of our own lives.

That sounds to me like another piece of hallmark federal legislation that we are all familiar with.

One person said at last week’s meeting that the current trash collection system has worked for 50 years and we shouldn’t mess with it.

But if you ever take a drive through one of the green box sites, you’d agree that this system surely is not working. Recycling bins are stuffed to overflowing. Garbage is strewn about the surrounding premises, like at Somers, where plastic bags are scattered in the neighbor farmer’s canola fields. Tires, refrigerators and couches sit in piles, stark contrast to the gorgeous natural surroundings. And people crawl in and out of the Dumpsters looking for a find. Meanwhile, our precious aquifer that is only about 10 feet below the surface (at Somers, anyway) awaits all the polluted runoff from the green box sites.

What the solid waste board sought to do was fix the system, and I agree with that. But they started in the wrong place — fixing only the cost, not the underlying symptom.

And to me, the underlying symptoms are our relationship with garbage, our attitude toward the environment and our place in the system.

People in rural areas have chosen to live farther out from the cities that have curbside trash collection. We should be willing to pay more for that luxury.

Let’s take responsibility for our own waste by reducing our contribution to the trash stream.

The city of Kalispell recently had a special trash collection day, where you could put anything out curbside you wanted to get rid of: appliances, carpet, tires, anything. It was good to see that the city wanted to take care of its neighbors by helping clean them clean up their yards.

If only the county would have taken that approach.