So the city has trash, big deal! Can I recycle?

Go ahead, raise your hands. How many of you would move to downtown Knoxville if you were certain you could recycle? OK, so maybe it isn't quite a poll worthy question, but it seemed like a logical follow-up to my recent story on garbage. I'll admit it didn't occur to me until after I moved, but it did occur: "How can I recycle?"

There has been some recent effort in the city to provide simple street pickup for recycling. It may have hit West Hills, but it hasn't hit the downtown streets. I do believe that many people will never recycle until they are told they must. Whatever kind of "ist" that makes me, so be it. Sometimes people have to be saved from themselves - or the rest of us have to be saved from them.

So, given that I'm a little extreme in this regard, I had to find out the story. It turns out there is a recycle center downtown on a forlorn desert of an area set aside for parking directly behind Mast General Store (and across State Street). It sits down the hill from most of downtown, but isn't that far from the Old City. It wasn't curbside, but I knew it was my only option. I just couldn't see myself getting in my car and driving somewhere to recycle. It seemed too ironic, which is odd, because I've done it when I've lived outside the city.

So, last November I started my hikes to the recycle center. It's about a half mile from my house and down a pretty steep hill which, though that means I have to hike back up, at least I drop the load at the bottom of the hill. It isn't terrifically pleasant during stretches like the one last winter where we didn't get above freezing all day, and it isn't a delight when the temperature hovers in the 90's. Once I tried to combine walking the dog and the trip with the recycling bag. Once was enough of that. I ran into a neighbor who was kind enough to never mention how bizarre I looked that day.

The bins are huge and fill up regularly, so I know there are many recyclers downtown. It appears a number of the businesses recycle. I also see recyclable materials in all the garbage cans, though, and I'm waiting for the city to have the vision to just tell us to do the right thing. It will probably will be a long wait in Knoxville, but I'm a patient man.

Talking Trash, Talking People

Trash in cities has a long and interesting, if smelly history. For hundreds of years after the advent of cities people had to be careful walking down a street, ever watchful for falling garbage thrown from living quarters above. We've moved a bit past that, thankfully.
So what do you do with garbage in downtown Knoxville in 2010? I would not have known or thought about it until we moved here. It turns out there is a pretty conventional answer to that question: You take it outside to a plastic dumpster just like folks in the suburbs. There are some differences: Our taxes pay for the dumpsters to be available and to be emptied, unlike in the county where you have to pay directly for garbage service. Our bins are larger and they are communal (That means we share them. The bins are not communists!)

The largest difference is more poignant. Given recent opposition to transitional housing in Knoxville, I'm guessing it isn't a difference most people outside of downtown want to experience. While jokes about dumpster diving may be common, it is a reality in a city. It is possible to live in a suburb and know homeless people and know garbage scavenging only in a theoretical sense. You never really have to see the reality. A city keeps us more honest. There are people who are not as different as you might like to think from me or you who have to resort to going through garbage to survive.

It gets even more personal when it is your garbage. When you have to think, "What did I throw away tonight, that I considered completely worthless, that would be important enough for a fellow human being to dig through a garbage can to get? I hear someone going through my garbage can most nights. It's hard to not see these invisible people when it is your garbage they look to for hope.

Interestingly, given the chance to share our communities and in the form of Housing First, helping people who are chronically homeless, Knoxvillians are choosing to fight it at every turn. The one thing that we might be able to do to help these people have a home and not have to go through our garbage, we resist because we don't want them close to our homes. We prefer they stay invisible, theoretical, not flesh and blood like us. Life in a city forces us to face the truth in all its beauty and ugliness. That's a reason many people should never move into a city and it's a reason I love it. It keeps me honest.

This man pictured going through the garbage at the corner of Wall and Gay Street agreed to have his photograph taken. The pictures are not pleasant, but they are real and they are a part of this city.