A Little Trash Talk

Long years ago, back in the 1950’s, there was little in the way of garbage to be gotten rid of in this area, in that there was very little in the way of non-returnable containers, such as is the case nowadays. Pop, after all, came in bottles that carried a bounty of a penny, payable upon return to the nearest store, and as a penny in them days would still fetch you something, the so-called penny candy, if nothing else, no enterprising youngster would ever allow a pop bottle to go unclaimed for long.

Heck, you might not believe it, but even milk came in returnable gallon jugs then. No kidding. I still have three from the Foremost Dairy. When my family moved back to Feds Creek in 1963, my father, my brother and I would spend Saturday mornings hiking to the closest general store carrying at least three, perhaps four, of these gallon jugs. When Bill Howell, who drove for Foremost then (now Farmbest, if I am not mistaken), showed up for his delivery there, we bought three or four fresh jugs of milk, and turned in the ones we’d spent the week emptying.

This activity, by the way, kept me from staying in front of the television as other youngsters from that era might have been doing with their Saturdays, enjoying the cartoons of the day, but kept me in my father’s good graces, which meant that he wasn’t obliged to warm up my breeches any for being insubordinate.

Another commodity that came in glass gallon jugs during the years that I consider to have been “the good old days”, was bleach. I know this to be true because I also have an antique glass bleach jug somewhere around the house somewhere. These might not have been returnable, but, as evidenced by its continued existence, some use must have been made of it once it was emptied of its original contents. Again, it wasn’t that we didn’t produce what might be termed as garbage then, it’s just that there wasn’t that much that was intended to be tossed casually, much as is the situation today. Whereas then, there was very little in the way of non-returnable containers, now there is nothing that sort of packaging. And the results of our throw-away society still finds its way to our roadsides, despite the best efforts of well-intentioned individuals to break us of our habit of being habitual litterbugs. And if anyone doubts this last statement, let them talk to the poor individuals who trudge forth on occasion to pick up the trash that has been tossed from passing cars. The roadside so cleaned will remain clear of garbage for mebbe two or three days. Afterward that, it would be impossible to say that anyone had ever been through picking up litter.

It was, I believe, sody pop that broke the mold of coming in returnable bottles. The first of these still glass, but non-returnable, bottles, showed up in the early to mid-sixties. Cans, of course, were never returnable, but, until about the same time required a church key to open. Not that you needed to be religious to consume their contents, it’s just that that is what the device that was employed to open cans or bottles in them days was called. And if you didn’t carry one with you, the can was no good to you, unless you were a vampire.

In fact, while I am bragging about antique containers, I have, in my possession a genuine can from the late 50’s or early 60’s, with its color scheme of a white background, covered with what appears to be stars, and a red diamond on either side with the words Royal Crown Cola, and at the top of the red diamond, a smaller white diamond, with the initials R C, as in, “Oh, gimme an R C and a moon pie.” On the top of this can are two puncture wounds given it prior to the contents of it being consumed. It’s use today? A flower vase, as in those two puncture wounds, I have placed some artificial posies.

We are not as buried in our garbage today as we were in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s. You see, the deeper we got into the era of disposables, the more we had to dispose of, but sadly, no place in which to dispose of it. Hillsides were once adorned with every conceivable form of trash. What got us at least a little cleaner was the insistence by former County Judge/Executive Paul Patton that a solid waste ordinance be passed that would establish a pick up service to be run by the county, and that required everyone to participate. As the county began to make believers of us all, it began at the same time, a program designed to eradicate all those illegal dumps that were pretty much everywhere at one time. And the result is, well, a much more pleasant area in which to live.

Of course, that was only the beginning, folks. Only the beginning. Part one, as it were. We are now living in an era which saw Pike County take the lead in getting the whole of Eastern Kentucky to clean up its act. County ordinances that required everyone to pitch in were a rarity at one time, as rare as the politician who had enough nerve to vote for one, but that is no longer the case. The state of Kentucky now requires much more of us than it did at one time, and that includes a whole bunch of barrels and hoops to jump through, for instance, to get a landfill permit. And the cost? I believe I saw an estimate of some $10,000,000 to get a new one operational.

And that, my friends, is the best reason I can think of to support the county’s efforts to get the new plant that is proposed to be built by Agresti Biofuels. Here is a plant, to be built by the existing landfill, that will make use, if memory serves, of some 90% of the garbage currently being buried. Not only will this plant bring high-paying jobs to the area, it will help us forestall the day when a new landfill is needed, and, as many other counties and cities already use our landfill, it will maintain Pike County’s reputation as a regional leader, and perhaps hasten the day when we can drive our highways (if we can afford the gas) without seeing the remains of what others had for lunch as they went through.