Beware of the Flying Water Heater

First off, I want to take the time to declare that I am in no way, shape or form a "tree hugger". I hunt. I drive one of these...

However, I do care about the environment. I don't understand the US public's aversion to diesel fueled vehicles (do you know that if I lived in Europe that I could get a 3.0 liter diesel engine to power my Jeep that puts out 300 horse and gets 30+ miles to the gallon?) However my biggest gripe is a little known "holiday" that is celebrated for one week in the Fargo-Moorhead area every spring. It's called "Clean Up Week". Basically, you're allowed to throw all sorts of shit out on to your curb and you just let it sit there until the city comes and picks it up. Apparently, it's your oppurtunity to get rid of unwanted and oversized items, but in this day and age you would think a city on the grow such as this area would definitly revisit such a practice.

To start off, garbage collection in the city really has few rules. Basically, as long as you make sure that no bag of trash you throw out weighs more than 40 pounds (because they still have a guy that physically throws all your trash in the truck), you can throw out as much crap as you want 51 weeks of the year. On top of this, the city charges extra for curbside recycling...basically discouraging anyone to do it. My neighbors are a retired couple and on a week to week basis there are as many as a dozen 30 gallon trash bags out in front of their house on trash day every week. I lived with 3 other guys and we never exceded our 60 gallon container when I lived in the city (well, we probably did tip the scales when it came to the volume of recyclable cans and bottles that left our place).

So not only does the city do nothing to encourage people to limit the amount of trash dumped in the city landfill, but for one week out of the year, they expect you to throw in more. In defense of cleanup week, the number of "scavengers" in town explodes. I'm sure there is a lot of discarded items (typically furniture) that finds its way into many college apartments around town. I remember my last year at NDSU. We basically just brought our entire furnishings out to the curb on cleanup week and they disappeared well before the trashman showed up.

To give you an idea of what cleanup week looks like, check these out...

I've left out one thing. North Dakota is also well known for the amount of wind we have here. Never fail, clean up week ends up during one of the windiest weeks of the year. Have you ever had to dodge a junked water heater as it rolled down the street? I have. I encourage you to learn more about this pathetic holiday. We've even given it an entire website...

http://www.cleanupweek.com