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December 30 , 2006

For most westerners, weekly garbage collections are probably just a simple fact of life—the way the world works. It’s hard to imagine living without the ease and convenience of the standard arrangement, by which someone simply drags away everything you no longer want on a regular basis, no questions asked. But less than 100 years ago, it was hard to imagine living with such an arrangement, at least for some people. Witness a heated debate that raged in the Palo Alto newspaper in 1915 over the issue of mandatory collections.

That’s right, mandatory collections. The city was about to place an incinerator in service, which required a steady stream of garbage to run economically. Apparently, it took more trash than could be collected on a voluntary basis. So a new ordinance was written to compel the citizenry to fork over the goods willy-nilly.

A Mr. Snyder took exception. He wrote a courteous but acerbic complaint to the newspaper, addressed to the city’s health officer, to explain his grievance. He had willingly helped pay for the incinerator in spite of the fact that it was no use to him. To be forced to also give up his garbage stretched his tolerance too far, however. His chickens, his roses, and his cauliflowers needed to be fed, and in a free country, he felt, he ought to be able to use his own leftovers to do so.

Whether Snyder was the only Palo Alto resident who didn’t want to contribute to the common good in this particular manner, the newspaper record does not disclose. Nor is it entirely clear what happened next, except by inference. In the back-and-forth with the public health officer, Snyder quickly descended to mud-slinging and the underlying issues of what we do with our garbage, individually and as a group, were quickly lost from sight. Snyder was fighting a losing battle. But then again, he was always going to win the war. What was to stop him from feeding his garbage to his chickens and throw the city a scrap here or there?

Our predicament, now, is almost entirely the inverse of Mr. Snyder’s. If we compost our kitchen slops, it’s to do the right thing, not because we have a real use for it. And the last thing municipalities worry about is making the residents part with their garbage. The vast majority can be counted on to do so willingly enough, whether or not the city is happy to receive their offerings.

Marijke Rijsberman