Family Field Trip to the Dump

Over the past few years we have had 40 yard dumpsters in front of our house on a regular basis. This of course was before I got on my anti-landfill contribution kick. 100 tons of landscape and construction refuse has caused a me certain amount of waste guilt. So in the past months, I have been accumulating dirt from my various landscape projects on one side of our house until I could figure out an environmentally sensitive way to get rid of it.

And finally I found such a place, California Waste Service, "the first and only Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste processing facility in Southern Los Angeles and the South Bay." "Nearly 70% of the C&D waste us sorted into separate and reusable commodities."

So I went down to the depot rented a truck and loaded it up with my collection of dirt and rubble. After finishing loading I was putting away the ramp I had been using. I looked down and remembered the pair of cinder blocks. I thought about hauling them back to a stack of unused and unneeded block and decided to just throw them on the truck and be done with them.

Big Mistake!!!

Apparently that block was the straw that broke the camels back, because this piercing alarm went off. I turned on the truck and turned it off, but the horrendous alarm continued. I noticed now the sticker warning of overloading the truck. I quickly ran back and took off the one cinder block and then another. And the wailing continued. I took off a couple of buckets of dirt to no avail. I got in the truck and drove away and the noise ceased. I turned around and reparked it and the alarm sounded again. I ran in to tell Cindy we had to leave now.(Remember this was to be an educational, family field trip) So I sat in the truck, in drive with my foot on the brake. I started fiddling around and finally got the truck parked on an incline in such a way that the alarm stopped. By then Cindy and Skye were ready to go.

When we got to the dump and parked on the scale the sonic alarm started up again, until the truck was weighed and we were off to unload. Of course, when we got to the where we needed to get rid of the dirt, the ear-splitting noise started in again. So Cindy got in the driver's seat, kept the truck in gear with her foot on the brake while I lightened the load. Finally, I had thrown off enough stuff to get the truck to shut up so that Cindy and Skye could truly appreciate the wondrous waste processing (not landfill) facility I had taken them to. I think that appreciation lasted less than a minute before they were back in the comfort and relative silence of the air conditioned vehicle.

In the end, the mission was accomplished. And I left feel green and waste-guilt-free.








Apparently this was one cinder block over 3500 lbs. Although according to the scales it was only 3020lbs and I know that those trash cans didn't weigh 500lbs. I'm feeling a little ripped off by the Depot. Oh well.