On Thursdays mornings, back home, the question of garbage stands forefront and center with a series of distinctive, warning auditory cues. By 7:45, the stress of the previous night’s forgetfulness becomes a potential mal olor, and storage problem, until the subsequent Thursday.
Thursday never comes here on the island. Smoldering 55-gallon barrels stand sentry duty at entry points to living areas along the roads. In these rusted, blackened barrels, are the remains of the prolific sea organisms who have been transformed so many times, over so long a period, from living to sediment to hydrocarbon black gold. Here, in these barrels, they make another transformation to aerosol. Non-burnables, such as cans, slowly accumulate at the bottom, replicating the geological process on a much diminished scale.
An aluminum recycling project had bright projections just 4 years earlier. The intervening years have darkened the prospect of the 3 R’s. Fenced cages with their bright and not-so-bright green, red, gold, and silver troves of cans still share duties with the 55 gallon drums. There are still thoughts of reopening the recycling plant – or so I am told. Action is slow on the island. Thoughts. . . are . . . glacial.
Waste food products are the simplest of disposal issues. What is unwanted or deemed unfit for human consumption becomes feed for pigs. If a few morsels escape the slop bucket, ubiquitous dog units maintain patrol duty. Questions of leadership and rank occur when inordinate amounts of perishables are discovered undefended by a sufficiently strong unit. Skirmishes are common. Rank and file are disrupted, adjusted, and realigned. Order is reestablished, sometimes with fatal consequences for the displaced.
But what of the big items, those moving conveyances which invariably break down or meet an unmoving object. Walking and jogging about the town, my attention has often been encouraged to develop possible solutions.
Along the causeway, a relatively new addition turned up one Saturday, probably a Friday night encounter. By Saturday morning, the most obviously viable components had been stripped. By early afternoon, the remains were towed away by a handy trailer.
Further down the causeway, an experiment in fencing creatively utilized body parts.
My name-sake -- another forgotten import.
No dogs patrolled the auto grave yard, though.
Nothing deters the natural growth, however; which is really a positive indication that we humans have a limited detrimental totality to our presence. We, too, shall pass.. . .
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