Prohibiting Dumpster Diving: can we just toss this lousy idea?

Wow, if you've been following this in the FDNM, or over at the Ester Republic, or wherever else this one has drawn the hue and cry of greater Squarebanksia -- people get really irate when you entertain the notion to stop them from scavenging at the transfer sites.

Sure, in theory you'll get those folks rummaging in the actual trash bins to stop doing so, [insert requisite public health message here], but you'll put a stop to that fine tradition of building a cabin or adding on to your existing one with materials entirely scavenged from the transfer site.

It will also quash my dreams of somehow building a sauna that way. You can't steal a woman's dream like that. What's next? Kicking puppies?

As someone who is now only an occasional, opportunistic (as opposed to a habitual) recycler of unwanted goods, I must add that this one is such a no-brainer that I can't believe anyone is taking the suggestion seriously. But then again, I thought much the same thing before we elected¹ G. Dubyah Bush the first time.

As well as the second. The civics lesson here is never assume that an idea is so bad it won't advance to actual implementation. (Hmmm. Iran, anyone?)

For the record, last weekend, we found this nice collection of household wares perfect for the S.O.'s UAF-attending sister. Someone had thoughtfully placed said wares in an empty Miller Lite box in the reuse area.

The sad thing is, the reuse area at the transfer site is the closest thing we have to a proper recycling effort around here. We're keeping perfectly usable stuff out of the landfill, a landfill, I might add, where we now send formerly recycled items from our now sadly minimal recycling program like paper, cardboard and glass. The borough was supposedly working on this, but that effort seems to have withered away.

¹Yes, I know, technically we didn't elect him.