Just Throw It Away
A typical trash trip off Matinicus Island involves our merry gang of roustabouts loading the second-largest-size U-Haul with, on average, 2500 pounds of neatly packed corrugated cardboard, other recyclables, and dry trash (no dripping goo, no organics or, as the industry calls them, “putrescibles,” which is a wonderful word in my opinion). Also, we haul deposit beverage containers, electronics, and dead appliances. Earlier this winter we carried an oddball item, something I hadn’t noticed in the mix until Maury and I were unloading the truck: a small but heavy pressure canister, maybe a foot in length with a molded-on plastic base, decorated in cutesy pink graphics suggesting maybe vintage ice cream parlors or a little kid’s birthday party. Labeled as nitrous oxide for food service use, this surprisingly heavy compressed gas bottle—supposedly for the manufacture of whipped cream and packaged as though not only benign but almost for children—proved a real nuisance on the disposal end.
Nobody would take it.
Before I continue, let me go on record as stating publicly that I do not “sneak in” or knowingly dispose of anything contrary to the rules of the receiving solid waste facility, with which we have a legal agreement and to which we are grateful. Sure; municipal boilerplate aside, I could have stuck this object into a black bag and flung it into the hopper. I didn’t. I want those folks to trust that I am on their team and not causing trouble. I’m hoping to make a point. That having been said, I’ll wager that most any householder whose rubbish disposal is less a matter of public spectacle might have done exactly that (snuck it in, I mean). Here’s why: this is one of those orphan trash items that there is no system in place to responsibly manage. There are quite a few products like that in our world: used diapers, old pot warp, uneaten Twinkies, nuclear waste, stuff like that. It can be a problem.
I had no way of determining (in the back of the truck) whether the little tank was pressurized or not. A small quantity of laughing gas, if there was any left, wouldn’t be particularly dangerous; it’s the pressure canister that makes it a problem in the trash. Nobody wants to risk even smallish explosions in their trash or scrap-metal compactors, potentially blowing garbage into someone’s face or damaging equipment, so the rule is that it isn’t welcome in the metal or the trash hopper, even if I know it to be empty, unless it is obviously busted open, visible from a distance.
Telling folks to “take the thing back to where you bought it” doesn’t work in the real world, either. Items that are hard to dispose of get dropped off when nobody’s looking, if they make it into the solid waste system at all.
By the way, there are no ice cream stores on this island, sad to say. Nobody is making that much whipped cream. Whatever.
I took the N2O cylinder to the Rockland Transfer Station first, thinking it could go with the small propane tanks of a similar size, and that there would just be a small fee. “No,” said Terry at the gatehouse, “We can’t take those.” I stopped by Matheson Gas, which sells compressed gases to welders and other businesses. It’s where I get medical oxygen as an island EMT. “No, sorry; our company won’t take that.” I tried Rockland Food Service, thinking maybe they’d have advice about where to return a supposedly food service item. “Hmm; no idea where that came from.” At Maine Oxy, store manager Jordan was interested in examining the strange unit, but he had no solution for me. He told me he doubted that had bought it around here.
“I’d bet whoever had this just ordered it off the Internet, direct from China.”
I still have the damned thing. I’ll have to breach it before I can toss it with the scrap metal, but it’s a sturdy, thick-walled tank, and will require more than just being target practice for a rat gun. It would not make an attractive bell. Maybe I should bring it to the Maine Resource Recovery Association’s annual spring convention (aka “Dump School”) and start a table display of Weird Trash, spurring industry-insider conversation.
Hopefully you’ll think of me riding around pestering half the businesses in Rockland before you assume that “throwing something away” makes it simply disappear.
Photos courtesy Jordan Kelly at Maine Oxy, Rockland