I Hate Leaf Blowers.

I've complained before, mildly, about leaf blowers. Well the days of mild complaints have long ended and now I'm an obnoxious, opinionated, out-spoken enemy of these horrible devices.

I will make begrudging allowances for people who have to clear away vast expanses of lawn in public places. The Mall in DC comes to mind. They probably don't have that many leaves but I grant that it's possibly quicker to use blowers in those settings. And the young strapping men usually hired to do such work like to play with them, just as they like to play with guns and other phallic-like items, so they probably do a better job than they would with rakes.

And there are some older people who believe they are being gentler to their bodies by using leaf blowers, so go ahead if you must. Frankly I'm not convinced that it's any more gentle to lug around an electric blower than to brandish a rake but I have no evidence that I'm right.

But for most homeowners or business owners I say get rid of those evil devices and pick up a rake or broom (or hire someone to do that).

I hate leaf blowers because they are:
1. Noisy. Painfully so.
2. Messy. All the leaf mold spores and dust and bits of leaves that get tossed up into the air we breath can NOT be good for us. Not to mention the chemicals that the homeowner may have applied to their lawn. Another thing I hate. Lawn chemicals.
3. Time-consuming. I am positive that it doesn't save any time to use a leaf blower, especially if you live, as I do, some place where you have to dispose of your own leaves. Your options are bagging them up for the trash/recycling crews to pick up or composting them, which is what we do. And is of course what I think everyone should do. Because it takes absolutely no time to maintain; pile up the leaves and walk away. That's it. (Man, I've got at least three rants I could include in this one but I won't.)
4. Resource-wasting. Obvious. They use gasoline or electricity. Boo-hiss.
5. Polluting. The devices themselves must be recycled when they inevitably break down or burn up (which just happened to my neighbor and is why I sat down right now to write this pent-up rant). So what happens when they are discarded? They end up on the coast of some poor nation -- India, Brazil, Ghana -- where children sift through trash piles of hazardous materials.

So there it is. I'm sorry if I've offended anyone. I don't really want to make anyone feel guilty. Truly. But since I can't say all of this to my neighbors -- I have said much of it, and yet they still speak to me! -- I felt the need to lay it all out there.

And I think I violated only one of the Thanksgiving rules I posted earlier today. Rule 2: Speak without accusing.

Image from here. A blog I'll have to check out later.

A documentary that was made for me. Can't wait to see it.

From the Sundance Film website:

Waste Land is a wonderfully resonant documentary that chronicles [Brazilian artist Vik] Muniz's journey to Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. He collaborates with an eclectic band of catadores, or self-designated pickers of recyclable materials, and photographs these inspiring characters as they recycle their lives and society’s garbage. Walker gains fantastic access to the entire process and, in doing so, offers stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the dignity that can be found in personal determination.

I read this so you don't have to.

I learned all these fascinating but quite unsettling things about our rejectamenta (isn't that a great word??). The most significant thing I learned is that while recycling is fine and dandy (it makes us feel good about ourselves), the most meaningful step we can take to reduce our garbage problem is to stop buying and acquiring stuff. (This makes me feel so much better about the slightly worn towels I can't bring myself to toss out.)

Did you ever suspect, as I did, that the carefully separated glass bottles and aluminum cans in your recycling bin ended up in the same place with the Chinese food containers you tossed into your trash? Depending on where you live that may be the case.

Did you ever wonder as you (I'm sorry) flushed the toilet where the contents went? If you lived in Boston up until 1990 the contents ended up being dumped into the Atlantic Ocean.

Did you ever wonder where all the hospitals sent their used bandages and surgical supplies? In most places the answer is "to the landfill," along with your Chinese food containers and your beer and wine bottles.

And of course some of our trash ends up on barges moving around the globe looking for poor countries that will take it off our hands.

One Ghanaian artist, El Anatsui, found a way to recycle some stuff. He made this piece of art called Dusasa II (2007) using found aluminum, copper wire, and plastic disks. It now hangs in the Met in NY. Not exactly a cost-effective plan for the rest of the planet but at least THAT stuff isn't sitting at the bottom of a 500-foot landfill in Ghana.

And the author doesn't address this problem, but if we all stopped acquiring rejectamenta wouldn't the manufacturing structure holding up much of the world's economy collapse?? These things worry me.

According to Robin Nagle, Professor of Anthropology at NYU, "Every single thing you see is future trash. EVERYTHING."

Even these sweet clapboard and detached houses in Georgetown, where most houses are brick and attached. The above observation about trash came from this article that I stumbled across this weekend. I'm fascinated by dirt and garbage, and so is this professor. I missed my calling. I now know that I really wanted to be a garbalogist.

Nagle says "we are surrounded by ephemera, but we can’t acknowledge that, because it’s kind of scary, because I think ultimately it points to our own temporariness, to thoughts that we’re all going to die."

She trying to get NYC to create a Museum of Sanitation.