"Stenchy, the official City of Portland food slop rat, approves of your efforts to save the planet."

Inspired!

Thank you. I couldn't have done it without first learning the Sam Rand Way of Life™.

I want a Stenchy!!!

Oh, you'll have one soon.

Stenchy rules. What is Stenchy's official catch phrase?

I vote for:
"Don't close them bins too tight!"

Along with cracked, disintegrating streets and sidewalks, rain drenched, stagnant bioswales, primitive transportation options, and mandated poverty for all but the few, Portland might in the near future be able to market itself as a place to come experience the 17th century.

Damn! Stenchy's one buff rat. He's obviously doing well under the new garbage regime. If he wants my slop, he can have it!

I am concerned that the crusty interior of my yard waste bin combined with the newly appointed slops will create a growing accretion of miasmic sediment which will not sufficiently empty during the dumping process and will actually grow to create a truly poisonous layer of ominous proportions. This will no doubt attract Stenchie to our property. This is bad.

Forget the smell. How about all wasps and hornets that will be drawn to the meat scraps, etc.??

I plan to keep my yard debris container clean and safe. I understand rats will chew plastic to get in, so imagine those containers will now need to be replaced periodically.

First of all, I really resent having to focus on this stuff every day and what will we have to do in order to keep our regular garbage container viable for two weeks now!!

All for the planet, we must comply now when the big polluters are carrying on?

We need a reporter to do an investigative story on what is really behind all this?
They will just be sent out later to report a rat infestation problem in Portland.

Just wait until they deliver your Composting Toilet. They'll have to double the CRC's capacity to handle the new commuters.

Come to think of it, all quite symbolic.
The stench of this fits quite well with the stench coming out of city hall!!

dean,
Exactly what I am thinking. Imagine gooey things like old clam dip, hummus, beef stew, etc. All that gunk caked up on sides of bin. Sure you can hose it out...but can you trust your neighbors to be as fastidious? It's one thing to keep your own cans clean but I pity the person that has to live cheek-by-jowl with some slobs who don't give a crap. I've had some neighbors in my time that I would NOT want to be living next to now with this new system.
What about the folks who already backyard compost their veg/fruit scraps along with yard debris? The people who don't use the green bin. Now they are supposed to put stinking meat in it and hope when it gets dumped in truck that most of it doesn't end up coating the sides because there isn't enough yard debris to 'flush it out' so to speak.
How about reeking diapers and animal waste? Nice.

For the record, we moved to ex-urbs last summer and my main reason was to get the hell out of Portland. I have watched steady decline since the 80's. I could elaborate but all here know of what I speak.
My sympathies to you city dwellers. Vote with your feet if you can possibly manage it.

dm,
Only if you wish to share that information, what area did you move to and what do you like about it, or is just getting away from this to anywhere a breath of fresh air?

clinamen,
Gorgeous pastoral location Wilsonville/West Linn area. When we were house shopping we looked almost everywhere outside PDX, including Central OR.

The rats will be here soon. Stenchy and his friends will have one helluva party; and yes the little darlings chew through the plastic very effectively. I think the rats are like most other rodents, in that their teeth just continue to grow during their entire lifetime.
17th century here we come, complete with plague.
Maybe all this washing of small and large compost bins is just part of the secret plan for Portland water users to use more water to rid the bins of the goo, thus generating more money for The Fireman/Admiral's river patrol/fire boats at $30 million each.
And as for composting toilets; I have some personal knowledge and experience as we have an off the grid/limited water supply property in Canada. They work pretty well as long as you use them sparingly. The ones that are advertised as being able to be used by 6 people, really only work well for 2. And like everything else in this world, they require care.

I just save up my garbage and dump it at our local businesses. It's really nothing to save my garbage from the evening and dump it at a coffee shop on my way in to get my morning mocha.

Oh Yes! I want a Stenchy too!

I discovered paper towels can go into the Yard debris bin, and so the hit from this garbage program change won't be as bad I first thought. I am definitely not doing the food scrap thing. I already spend an hour and half, or a little less, each night cleaning the kitchen (without separating food scraps); and by self imposed trial, I found separating food scrap would cost me another ten to fifteen minutes a night. No Thanks.

The ways available to counter the cut by half in garbage can pick-up service are as follows:

Compacting (manual stomping. Compactors are fairly expensive)

Garbage Disposal (requires more time. Yuck)

Sneeking garbage into the Blue Bin (Can't do because Wife blocks me from such dissonance)

Separate containers around house for paper towels (helps a bunch).

Sneeking garbage without identifying marks into public trash bins (Too much hassle and time).

These are some of the many ways to react to this cut in government service (everyother week garbage can pickup, that is).

I really am suspicious whether this trash reformation actually cuts costs and does much of anything for the enviroment. That the cost of garbage service actually increases in that you get half the garbage can service without a price cut probably answers the first question. As for the environment, you still have two to three trucks running through neighborhoods instead of just one (as in conventional garbage service). Then there's additional handling at three different trash processing sites.

But the real cost might be the extra time lost by families and individuals having to spend an hour or so each week separating out garbage. I think the EPA uses an hourly cost of labor value of $30. So effectively the real cost of garbage service is at least $30 more than conventional garbage service (without recycling). This no doubt offends the "good" intentions of many of stump town's holy green followers, but I suspect this is the actual real world results...good intentions or not.

My wife definitely feels better when she uses the blue recycling bin. I try to infuse her with some economic skepticism. But it's really not about actual beneficial results for the environment but rather, being able to show your holy "green" life style to others (perception based results is what really matters).

"Stenchy, the official City of Portland food slop rat" Bwahahaha!

Bob, I have a hard time seeing where those 15 minutes go. You eat dinner — before you'd empty plates into the garbage, and then put the plates in the dishwasher. Now, you're supposed to empty them into the yard debris bin or into the bucket. Even if you empty that bucket out every day, how does that really take so long? I might just be missing something. I don't get to participate because I don't have a house.

Regarding pickups, in the West Portland park area, phone prefix 246 we received a robo call Sunday telling us what would be picked up today. Basically the instructions on the phone said "Only the yard debris cart, with kitchen scraps added. NO recycling, NO regular garbage, though today would, under the old system, have been pickups for both regular garbage and recycling.

I emptied the frozen bag of meat / fish scraps into the yard debris cart about 07:00 am, tossed the plastic bag it had been into the can on the side of the house to wait for next week.

I haven't used yhe in-kitchen scraps bucket yet and have no intention of ever doing so.

Right now its on the table by the front door, filled with Three Musketeers bite size bars, in anticipation of the evening's trick or treaters.

If I get lucky, few will show up and I'll have the goodies for myself. Always buy the candy you like yourself. It makes disposing of left overs so much easier.

portland native wrote 17th century here we come, complete with plague.

That is the one thing that has bugged me all the years I have been hearing this density/recycle propaganda. Doesn't anyone at city hall have any idea as to what cities looked like 100 years ago? Certainly there are no horses, but density and garbage don't make for a healthy environment. Doesn't the health department have any say about any of this? This city has more rats than I have ever seen in another city and I have been to a bunch. Don't they realize that people started moving out of the cities to the suburbs for health reasons? I guess not!

Someone mentioned garbage disposals. Yes...don't most homes have them? I don't understand how The Green Leaders figured that food scraps make up 30%(or whatever it is) of garbage. I find it hard to believe anyone is going to have significantly less trash that it now requires only every other week pick-up.

One local TV station filmed a volunteer demo family for 2 weeks to get their take on it. Family of five. They were not so thrilled. The food slop didn't amount to enough to lower trash can, the wife not started out gung-ho but changed her tune, the hubby never liked idea from beginning and they still had full can after a week.

This idea has nothing to do with costs. It's all another social engineering scheme foisted on citizens by the Green Religion Cult that runs PDX. Their whole plan is to make Portland number one in world for 'Sustainablity! Green! Eco-Friendly!' ad nauseaum. Like the loser, lonely kid in back of class who keeps raising his hand yelling, "Me, Me! Notice ME! Lookey here!" It's how they want to put Portland on the map. And get some use out of their enviromental degrees from university.
And until India, China etal lower their carbon footprint I fail to see how micro-managing our steak bones and dictating which stupid lightbulbs I can use is going to make one bloody bit of difference.
Go by streetcar!

We've been doing this for the past year in Roseway and we keep the small waste container outside our back door. No rats or raccoons have ever gotten into it, nor have they breached the large yard waste container, and I've heard no stories to that effect from my neighbors. The concern about the funk in the can, however, is indeed warranted. The thing gets unbelievably foul very quickly and cleaning it is pretty vomit inducing.

Bob Clark:...But the real cost might be the extra time lost by families and individuals having to spend an hour or so each week separating out garbage...

I can see even more hours pressured out of us coming down the pike by the time all is said and done. What do you think is planned for all of us when more budget cuts are implemented and less and less services?

I can only imagine that we citizens will have to spend our weekends now taking turns mowing the parks and washing our streets.

I can already see at the neighborhood level, less public safety officers than needed, so more requests/needs then for the citizens to patrol the neighborhoods and in East Portland, Jefferson Smith had the idea for citizens to patrol Max stations. Don't know if it actually happened.

Nonny Mouse,
I think we have been tricked and treated by this city maneuver, mostly tricked!!
Just in time for Halloween!
Guess it is no accident that my favorite candy bar is Snickers.
Enjoy the Three Musketeers!

jason:...The thing gets unbelievably foul very quickly and cleaning it is pretty vomit inducing.

Thanks for the information. This is why I plan to keep mine clean.

Aaron: Bob, I have a hard time seeing where those 15 minutes go. You eat dinner — before you'd empty plates into the garbage, and then put the plates in the dishwasher.
JK: NO!
You eat dinner and then put the plates, with food scraps, and dinnerware all in the garbage. Now the green idiots want us to separate the paper plates in one bin, the plastic dinnerware in another and finally the food in a third.

Maybe we should just put it all in the recycle bin - lets see paper, plastic and a little bit of food. YEP, that should do it, after all we are into recycling aren’t we?

Thanks
JK

By the way - what are the Metro appointed garbage haulers now charging everyone for this nonsense? Here in the Reno area we pay $51.06 for three months of weekly garbage pickup. And the green roller can we have is a lot larger than anything we ever had in Portland.

I am pretty sure some big corporation is benefiting from all this so in solidarity with OWS protesters, we will institute our own act of civil disobedience and not use the debris bin for composting. And before anyone jumps all over this, we already compost kitchen scraps and half of the yard debris and we seldom have any food scraps left after dinner, yes we were taught to clean our plates (which are not paper).

This has got to be a scam!
I cannot believe that in this economy everyone in the city is throwing away that much food!
Doesn't anyone make soup out of leftovers any more?

Stenchy bears an close resemblance to a chupacabra. Maybe this is the proper Linnaean name for Stenchy, the new City of Portland mascot:

Rattus chupraluchre ("Money-sucking rat")

Anyone thinking of complaining to their garbage hauler?

Perhaps demand weekly pickups continue, or we will only pay 1/2 of the bill?

thanks
JK

I'm not sure complaining to the hauler will do any good, they don't set the rates or the services. The CoP/Metro does that.

The suggestion on the website to help us use our porta pots suggests we hose out the green can. I dropped something in accidentally a while back and severely bruised my ribs trying to get to it. My neighbor CRACKED hers doing the same thing.

Mister Tee:Just wait until they deliver your Composting Toilet....

Wouldn't put it past them.
Just in case there is a problem with your compost toilet,
Randy will have one of his loos installed on each street.
We can all be nice and neighborly standing in line
in the middle of the night to use our street loo!

That would make us all Loo-sers,
wouldn't it?

nancy:I want a Stenchy!!!

portland native:Oh Yes! I want a Stenchy too!

Whoever designed this Stenchy, me thinks there is a money making venture here.

So when you hose out your big green can, what happens to the sludge that you wash out?

I think this wouldn't be quite so awful if we actually had yard debris in our green bin. But seeing as how we've been good Portlanders all along and have composted our own grass clippings and leaves, the slop is the only thing in our bin. We're wrapping it in brown paper bags and/or newspaper to try to contain the mess.

By the way, those biodegradable bags that we all got coupons for? Available at New Seasons? We don't got those fancy stores out here in redneck Gateway.

Kudos to Mojo!

The sludge will go in the giant poop shoot and over flow into the Willamette River whenitnrains. Hee Hee....

no less then half of our trick-or-treaters have been using their slop bucket for a candy pail so far...

Please follow this link of the Penn and Teller Recycling Test. Warning!! R rated language

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC3CZBDz7Wg

Home and didn't get fired for laughing at my desk over Stenchy so it was a good day.

Anyway, we don't live in Portland, so hardly follow its politics. The wife was surprised at the new garbage/compost rules, and loves Stenchy. As a nurse the first thing out of her mouth was "rotten meat in a little pail outdoors... where's the health department?" Then it was "who composts meat anyway?" (She/we have composted for years, she uses it in the garden, and the rule has always been No Meat.) Giving it some thought the idea that garbage will be reduced 30% is absurd. On it's face. We're probably more frugal than many, and we both like to cook, but even if we threw away what we didn't eat each meal it wouldn't even approach 10% of our garbage, by volume or weight. Load of crap, obvious propaganda.

When told of the new 2-week schedule she was concise: "Portland is full of idiots."

No offense to any non-idiots who happen to live in PDX.

If there was ever a solution in search of a problem this is it. What was wrong with throwing a few table scraps in the garbage? The part that didn't go down the disposal or already into the yard debris bin to begin with? It has to be a small fraction of the overall waste. There will be just as many garbage trucks trolling the neighborhoods and just as many trucks heading to Arlington every week. How is this a benefit to anyone?

Not all of the trucks will be going to Arlington. Some will be going to Lebanon and Cornelius to hand over the food slop to the Mafia guys... er, I mean, compost producers, who will process it and sell it.

I will continue to throw everything into the trash. When that overflows, I will throw it into the blue bin. What are they going to do?

I wonder who exactly is responsible for this idea in the first place, who instigated this, who decided to implement it and why?
Sure do wish we had some investigative reporters around here.

Hey Jack,
How about leading a movement to stop this crap. Some options:

People demand a 50% rate reduction or quit garbage service?

Campaign to put all garbage in the recycle bin.

Put out garbage can weekly and call and complain that it didn't get picked up. Leave it out. Add plastic garbage bags beside the can as needed.

Other ideas?

Thanks
JK

I'm as frustrated about the halving of our garbage service as all of you but come on! If you are wasting so much food such that putting it in a container takes you 15-minutes then there's a world hunger problem you should aware of. Wasting food has always made poor economic as well as societal sense.

If you are throwing it out - then somebody in your kitchen planning department screwed up! And if you are throwing out MEAT every night then you must be the 1% everybody is talking about or you have rocks for brains.

a movement to stop this crap

Occupy Arlington!
Citizen Revolt Against Putrefaction!

Why not just leave the bin out all the time? The stink and maggots will get so bad I wouldn't want it near my home anyways. Portland wants to roll back the clock at least one century and the streets were once the gutters of stench and filth. Save on water bills... go back to chamber pots and empty those in the street. It'll feed the rats.

There is no possible chance I will ever participate in the slop pail program, not ever. I can’t believe anyone else would. I guess I was a bit naïve to think this idea would be the one to finally cause a revolt against the evil green cult leaders, but likely there were smelly pails lined up on the curbside as far as the eye could see.

I just couldn’t do it this time around, maybe in my next life. I admit to having made many concessions over the years in the spirit of a healthy planet, even though I doubted the need for most green programs proposed by the loonies. Not this one though, no chance.

Anyway, for those young college grads out there looking for work, might I suggest a mobile extermination startup as a way to guaranteed success. Fair warning though young people, if “Stenchy” is in your company name you may have to give Jack a cut.

I live in an apartment building in NW Portland. I and my neighbors use a community dumpster in the alley and a shared recycling space in the basement. How will the new rules effect us, if at all? I have received no slop bucket and nothing from the CoP about any of this. Thanks.

I believe condos and apartments are exempt from this latest bout of mental flatulence out of city hall.

No slop buckets or composting required for apartment dwelling citizens.
Too messy probably.

Re: Stenchy... Since I am also from New Jersey - I immediately recognize Stenchy from his many appearances at Union picket lines. I think the amount of commenters that have never seen this particular breed of rat are a clear signal about the decline in the amount of unionized labor (or at least unhappy unionized labor) in Oregon!

There should be some way to stop this before summer.
What does our Multnomah Public Health Department think about this? Were they consulted?
Maybe if Ted Wheeler were head of the County, he might have intervened.
I am thinking that this is more of just an inconvenience and forcing citizens to change behavior, this will become a serious health issue.
That should put Portland on the map!

I live in Washington County, so mandatory food recycling is not a problem (yet). Wash Co has other problems.

However, I can say that the neighbor's compost pile (I have one too, but am careful what I compost) caused a rat infestation about 6 years ago. I don't like to poison - it may be that a light load 22 rifle took some of them out - but I'm not sayin' - and my dog disembowled at least one and I found a couple others dead in my yard - but I finally had to spend money to poison - which I found distasteful but had no options because rats breed like - well, rats! I suspect that Vector Control (does Mult Co even have that) is going to be hiring.

Not only not required for apartment dwellers, not required for condo dwellers either unless the building has 4 or fewer tenants. Naively, the city equates living space with the ability to generate organic waste. The families living in Section 8 housing across the street from us (in an apartment complex that doesn't have to deal with the slop buckets) produces mounds more waste than the single townhouse owners a block away could ever dream of. Making half the block use slop buckets doesn't do a thing to cut down on weekly garbage pickup either since well over half of the people living in our neighborhood live in apartment buildings of more than 4 units.

I've seen the buckets littering the driveways and teetering on the top of the recyling bins in the west hills and they don't look very big or very well made. The west hills seemed to have got theirs sooner than the outlying areas as well.

Having read or heard that Portland's slopbucket program is similar to San Francisco's, I thought I'd look up how often their landfill garbage gets picked up, and it appears to be weekly. Here's the link: http://sunsetscavenger.com/residentialRates.htm
So how did we get stuck with garbage pickup only every other week? Is the average Portlander supposed to generate only half the trash of the average San Franciscan?

Do the condo and apartment dwellers still receive weekly garbage pick up? Has their cost of service increased or decreased or stayed the same?

What percent of properties in the city are places of residence of greater than four units?

What percent of properties in the city represents (and what are) the many other exempt properties, businesses, hospitals, schools, stores, senior living centers, retailers, grocery stores, etc...

What percent of properties in the city are places of residence for single families?

What percent of Portlanders is actually paying a private company to make and sell compost? And where's my stock certificate?

Is that Sam's plan for future income, stock in the compost?

In Tucson with the same company as here in Portland (formerly Trashco), garbage service is only $18.00 per month for twice weekly pickup and they do most of the recycling at their facility except for paper and glass that you set out in the small bins.

Does this mean that our top-notch Council is less adept at negotiating garbage fees? Or any money-under-the-table? Why the difference? We're not Greener, and they have 220 more miles of bikeways than Portland with one-half the population.

Bingo,
Do you cook from scratch?
Those who use primarily processed foods will have an easier time of discarding cans and paper cartons, etc.
Cooking from scratch is more involving.
Example:
1. Chicken Stock - processed, pour out of carton or can and discard in blue bin.
2. Chicken Stock - from scratch, completely different, now instead of a can or carton, have chicken carcass to discard and bay leaves, and whatever else is left in a huge stock pot.

Our kitchen department had to rethink and change our behavior/plans for the week.
We make our own chicken stock...
this is using every part of the chicken making many meals, chicken soup, chicken dinner, chicken stir fry, and the stock itself which now will not be available for other uses such as a risotto.
That plan had to be changed, we had to put the chicken back into the freezer - why?
Because we do not want the chicken carcass/bones around here for the two week pickup...
we will not put food into our yard debris can, see other comments about what happens to that container.
So there goes our menu we had planned for the week, we now have to think about when we can make chicken stock, why should we have to change and work around this every other week pick up?
Who is really benefiting from this?

...We're not Greener,...

Our city is only portrayed as Greener, watchdogs know otherwise.

The Tucson plan sounds good. Twice weekly pickup and smaller bins. The huge bins really are an eyesore and some homes have difficulty as to where to place them...
how much did those huge bins cost?

More evidence that our Council has failed.

So, the big day was today in our neighborhood. Green and blue soldiers in the recycling wars lined the curbs. Excitement was in the air. And (drumroll, please) ...

... we all got little notes attached to our non-slop recycling bins announcing that there'd been a mistake, we'd been given the wrong schedule and pickup wouldn't be until Thursday.

Barely a 4 on the Surprise-O-Meter.

Bring out your dead.

Maybe this is another scam like the leaf tax, the rainwater disposal tax, et al.

I.e, by charging close to the same fee for half the service, the city winds up with excess revenue to siphon off to some other as-yet-unrevealed brain fart.

Besides garbage service and price being much better in Tucson, the water bill is much less than Portland's.

They use Colorado river water mixed with pumped ground water with only 12" of rain a year, while we have 42" of rain and a rivers and reservoirs all around. The Colorado is over 300 miles away. Doesn't figure does it? They've got to hope Randy doesn't retire in Tucson then apply for Water Commissioner for his fourth paycheck. He'd increase water rates endlessly. "We aren't paying enough, folks!"

Really, this whole thread has been pretty amusing. As I said before, we've been on the program as part of the pilot for the last year. It seemed pretty nasty at the start, but has been no big deal--the only crappy aspect is cleaning the bin, which as I mentioned, is pretty gross. Overall though, dumping the food waste in the yard waste bin is no big deal---no rats or coons have ever gotten into it and it does cut down on waste and the other-every-week trash pickup hasn't been a problem --and we're a family of four with diapers to chuck. Unless yr just chronically averse to change, it's really no big deal. I'm no fan of social engineering and forcing people to do things, but this project is just not that troublesome.

That said though, I wouldn't want to live next to the compost dumping area!

every-other-week!

Two things:

1. My father fishes, and when he guts or flays his fish at home, all the entrails, skin & bone go into an old (paper) milk carton and into the freezer until garbage day. No smell, no rats, cats, 'possums or other critters. Works with chicken and game birds too.

2. Just wondering - how "green" is it to shoe-horn people into condo bunkers and then give them a bye on the disgusting parts that house owners are asked to do? How is it supposed to save the earth when we are all living in condos and throwing away good scrap food? Do they still have garbage shutes in high rises?

jason:...--the only crappy aspect is cleaning the bin, which as I mentioned, is pretty gross....

jason:The concern about the funk in the can, however, is indeed warranted. The thing gets unbelievably foul very quickly and cleaning it is pretty vomit inducing.

Reason enough for not doing this.
Cannot believe that the public health department would approve of this.

Nolo:...into the freezer until garbage day...

That may work better for some who have an additional freezer than just the small one in a refrigerator.

Good point about how green is it then to have those exempt from the program who live in condos, etc.

Portlandia's version of our recycling: http://bcove.me/pgh5mfwp

Has anyone actually been able to buy the "compostable" bags? I made a special trip to New Seasons, where they had an empty shelf and a sign that said, "Our supplier has been unable to keep up with the demand for this product". Do you notice how it is the fault of "the supplier", not New Seasons for not planning ahead and ordering sufficient amounts? This is not a recent decision, and should not have caught the stores unprepared. First there was a proposal, and then it was passed. Did the stores think it would fall through somehow, so why order the product? (I wish that they had been right).

The reason I am writing is that after only 2 days, my paper bag fell apart and made a mess that I had to clean up in the middle of dinner preparation. If we can't buy the bags, we are supposed to use newspapers or paper bags? Lots of luck, everybody-- mine had liquefied after only 2 days. I side with Bob Clark, that this is becoming very time consuming. I may be making fewer salads...

Paulette Filz,
I believe that more and more of us will find out that Bob Clark's trial period will bear out that it will be time consuming.
I am still harping on the idea of the health aspects of this, and am wondering what our public health department will be faced with next summer.

I would like to thank Sam Adams and company for allowing me to stand out in the pouring rain last night sorting and separating various food and non-food items into four bins! This is exactly what I wanted to do after working a full day and coming home to learn my refridgerator is not working properly... so cleaning a fridge AND late-night sorting was exactly what I had in mind. Good times! Seems like I could load all this in the car and drive it down to Occupy Portland's permanent site since I think we as taxpayers pay all related garbage disposal fees in and around that area. I feel a campaign coming on, "Occupy Portland with your trash."

Dr Johnny Fever had the best idea