342. Greening 2019

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AIDS Walk 2019

Yesterday was AIDS Walk, which went really well again. For one thing there seemed to be an over abundance of us. I only worked four hours because we were done early. I reminded everyone of the factors that can make this event go sideways -- an abundance of “free” mixed stream boxes a producer of lube always gives the event, and overly enthusiastic volunteers who will pull bags too quickly that still need to be sorted. 

I arrived just as the walkers were returning and the entertainment was starting. I quickly determined that the Chevron area was creating the most mess so I worked there until it was time to start taking down our eco-stations. The problem here was that Chevron was mixing plastic flatware and lots (LOTS) of little condiment packages with the paper plates of food. So I was pulling out the plates -- with some food and a few cups -- after knocking off the plastic items. This resulted in a bunch of bags filled with my usual nearly 100% compost while the contamination built up at the bottom of the containers. But this was a nearly perfect event for me as I got to sort down the four stations in the Chevron area myself.  After getting out as much of the good stuff as I could reach, I would pull the bag and add it to the next station, slowly getting more and more of the food that had fallen to the bottom. By the final station there was just a mess of plastic and some food that I was happy to toss into the landfill. Then I moved on to shut down other stations that I had not been maintaining.

This was in Golden Gate Park’s Sharon Meadow. This being July, we didn’t get any sun until almost the end of the site cleanup. Typical summer in SF. 


One interesting, and surprising, thing happened yesterday. The new woman last year, who at this event was annoyed by my pulling out compost she had just sorted, praised my method. Either she finally noticed how it works or she finally noticed that I have “special” status with our boss as the oldest employee (who remembers details like the lube boxes from hell from year to year). Don’t know which it is. Don’t really care.

Undiscovered 2019

Surprise! (for me) they moved it two blocks west. Luckily you can just catch a glimpse of the new location down Jessie. 

The new location is a little harder to get to but also more secure. And the event is now more like a baby La Cocina event. If it gets any busier we’re going to need more than 6 yards for the compost. 

I trained the new guy, who seems to be a quick study. Since it was already busy when we started, I was in sorting and pulling mode, so he, to my surprise, copied that as well as just the basic sorting. I was prepared to cover one of the eco-stations in the entertainment area, as well as the ones in the food area, but the first time I hit it he was already there doing what I would do. Happy day.

Because it was so crowded at my end, dropping my sorted bags in the toter at the south edge of the event worked well. It might have been easier for E___ to use the toter, instead of the wheeled round, for hauling, but that would have left the bag stash more visible -- though I’m not sure anyone would have cared.

The only problem at the end of the day was that my head-lamp batteries had died so I had to improvise to do the final sort of the station bags. That and the mess left by some vendors.


I pulled a single blue glove from the compost -- just to mess with me, I’m pretty sure. And the event staff put a stack of pizza boxes in the compost without removing the plastic spacers or foil condiment packs because, of course they did.

Art & Soul 2019

Another greening season, another Art & Soul Festival in downtown Oakland. What I like about it is that it's the first of the Oakland events I work with James, who supervises another crew that does mostly hauling and grounds. That and that it gives me a chance to get warm in the middle of a cold SF summer.

What I don’t like is the amazingly consistent resistance of A&S goers to what we are trying to do. They insist on throwing their food and plates into the landfill, and if you call them on this some will tell you they do it on principle because sorting the trash isn’t their job. It, apparently, is the job of the Man. The food vendors are also total assholes, but that never really changes. I only had three vendor eco-stations to maintain this time so I would go in, sort them all out, work the street and concert areas for an hour, return and find the most ungodly and unlikely messes. Which took much longer to sort out than if we just collected their damn bags and sorted it and kept them away from the sorted bins. I’ve actually sent out an email suggesting we drop the pretense of “vendor self-sorting” but I doubt that will fly since people would rather believe that we are slowly educating the public and vendors. After twelve years of greening work I can attest that there is no change, especially with vendors. Though to be fair, every year at this time I have to ask what the Oakland bin colors mean because gray for recycling and burgundy (brown) for landfill makes absolutely no sense.

At the very end of my shift on Sunday I was scheming the pickup of a bunch of leftover food from the caterer in the VIP area behind the big concert area near me, while trying to wind down the vendors. Some had already left so I pulled the properly sorted compost and recycling toters and put them out in the street to be taken to our dumpster location. A bunch of MEN were sitting around the other eco-station talking and drinking while the women took down their setups. I couldn’t even get to the station because of the lounging men so I said screw it and headed for the VIP area. Which turned out to be a good decision as they managed (how?) to not know that their Sterno cans didn’t belong in landfill. So I collected them for reuse while my crew chief showed up for the food pickup I’d been scheming since the previous night, when we composted all the leftovers. (I was really hungry and they looked delicious.. But getting them home on the train is just too much bother.)

There was at least one funny thing that happened on Sunday. We have a worker who admits to being OCD and, while much better lately, has a tendency to be too perfect when sorting trash when it gets busy. But she’s the perfect person to sic on a dumpster that is obviously too contaminated. 

Anyway, the first time I worked with her and noticed her problem was at A&S many years ago. I was working the same area (around half a dozen public eco-stations plus the vendor stations) and she was supposed to be covering for me while I took a lunch break. I left her working a particularly vile BBQ place where they were giving away small, but free portions of ribs. Most of the ribs were going into the landfill, because Oakland, and she was trying to sort that out. I took my half hour break and returned to find her still at it. She had never left to cover the other stations she was so focused on getting this one perfect. Sisyphus had nothing on her. I was so pissed, imagining the state of the other stations, that I left her at it and rushed to clean up the mess she had inadvertently made.


Anyway, her soul sister was working Sunday and she too was focused on the landfill bags. It is hard to let all the good compost at the bottom of landfill bags go at A&S, but it’s a war you can’t win unless you stay at one station all afternoon. But at least I was keeping the four eco-stations in order (by quickly pulling out the bulky paper items on top) so she was actually helping, but in a way that doesn’t make any long term sense. This time I was just amused. I probably should have talked to her about it, but I’m not sure that’s really my job. And, except when she wore out the bottom of one landfill bag and left it leaking it’s contents onto the street, she was making my job a little easier.

Outside Lands 2019

I arrived an hour early at the usual service entrance but they wouldn’t let me in there. I walked miles -- around the event -- to the entry closest to where I was supposed to be working but they weren’t letting anyone in there. I finally tried the main entrance for concert goers but they didn’t like my backpack and water bottle. So I left. First time I’ve ever not managed to work my shift.

That was Friday and I’m next scheduled for Sunday. I will go in without my backpack or much of my gear and with little enthusiasm. This is my least favorite event anyway and now they’ve made it even worse.

Sunday
Well I did finally get in and to my work area, but it was a pain and took about an hour. I also managed to have my phone die on me -- for the first time -- so I couldn’t contact anyone when I was stuck short of where I needed to go. But then the coolest thing happened. While sorting bags of trash I ran into a brand new cable, still in its packaging, so that I was then able to recharge my phone. And it’s a neat little cable, much smaller than mine. So I ended up coming out ahead there. Of course I did have to pay $4 for a bottle of water since I couldn’t bring mine into the event.

As before, we got caught-up before the last set and they stopped bringing us more bags, so we had nothing to do until almost time to quit. 

Oh another cool thing happened: Almost at the end some people from a bar booth started bringing us their trash on a golf cart. There were bags full of beer cans -- and unusually for a vendor, they was nothing but beer cans so they could go directly into the recycling. I went to grab some more of the bags so I was too late to catch the woman tossing the entire, unopened bag into the dumpster. You have to open them up and dump the contents. Fortunately, I had a younger coworker to send in to get the bag. And he found a bunch of other bags that had no business in there. We had no idea how or when they went in. But the point is that, if not for the woman tossing in her bag, we would not have noticed the others. It SO worked to our advantage. Or at least my advantage since I wasn’t the one who had to jump in and fish them out.

Unfortunately there was no upside to the guy I helped dump a large toter of “recycling” into the recycling dumpster only to then discover it was completely mixed trash. We had to fish out all the trash and compost. The same guys had a toter full of compost that we opened the compost dumpster so they could dump it directly and they managed to do that in the worst way possible, so that stuff was draining out under the doors. Aside from those two idiots, it was a pretty good shift.