Whoever places "illegal dumping" complaints about perfectly usable furniture like this couch being left out for reuse by other members of the community, please consider the harm that not allowing it to find a new home without government interference does to the public and the throwaway model it perpetuates.
In the best case scenario, usable items are diverted from the landfill by an exclusive sweetheart-deal contractor that gets paid up to $114K for three years to take their pick of the most valuable items, which they then turn around and sell to the public. After the public pays to have it picked up off the streets, and then pays again to send everything Urban Ore doesn't take, to the landfill.
And the above link is an EPA article trying to hold this program up as a role model. One can be sure that in reality it doesn't operate in as efficiently or corruption-free as the article might lead one to believe!
Also, is that a bus stop sign at the rear of the photo? Hard to tell, but if so, as at many city bus stops there's no place to sit while waiting for the bus. Maybe someone left the couch there as a public service for that purpose?
Recognize that whatatever you report to have picked up at taxpayer expense and taken to the Transfer Center will most likely end up in the landfill. Trying to make your neighborhood look pristine, and simultaneously denying poorer residents the opportunity to find free items they can use on the street instead of having to go buy them somewhere else, means filling that landfill more rapidly.
While the exclusive contractor Urban Ore reportedly saved over 800 tons of material in a recent year, that's out of 147,000 tons of material the center processes in a typical year – in other words, a drop in the bucket:
5 Commentos
Riconosciuto City of Berkeley (Ufficialità verificata)
Chiusa City of Berkeley (Ufficialità verificata)
Reopened Starchild (Utente registrato)
Whoever places "illegal dumping" complaints about perfectly usable furniture like this couch being left out for reuse by other members of the community, please consider the harm that not allowing it to find a new home without government interference does to the public and the throwaway model it perpetuates.
In the best case scenario, usable items are diverted from the landfill by an exclusive sweetheart-deal contractor that gets paid up to $114K for three years to take their pick of the most valuable items, which they then turn around and sell to the public. After the public pays to have it picked up off the streets, and then pays again to send everything Urban Ore doesn't take, to the landfill.
https://www.epa.gov/transforming-waste-tool/zero-waste-case-study-berkeley
And the above link is an EPA article trying to hold this program up as a role model. One can be sure that in reality it doesn't operate in as efficiently or corruption-free as the article might lead one to believe!
Also, is that a bus stop sign at the rear of the photo? Hard to tell, but if so, as at many city bus stops there's no place to sit while waiting for the bus. Maybe someone left the couch there as a public service for that purpose?
Riconosciuto City of Berkeley (Ufficialità verificata)
Starchild (Utente registrato)
Recognize that whatatever you report to have picked up at taxpayer expense and taken to the Transfer Center will most likely end up in the landfill. Trying to make your neighborhood look pristine, and simultaneously denying poorer residents the opportunity to find free items they can use on the street instead of having to go buy them somewhere else, means filling that landfill more rapidly.
While the exclusive contractor Urban Ore reportedly saved over 800 tons of material in a recent year, that's out of 147,000 tons of material the center processes in a typical year – in other words, a drop in the bucket:
https://www.berkeleyside.org/2018/11/27/berkeley-looks-to-overhaul-its-waste-facility-with-future-needs-in-mind