7/11/09

PhotoHunt: GARBAGE

This week's topic for PhotoHunt is GARBAGE. I couldn't imagine taking a picture of garbage and was tempted to go an easy route and just get a shot of trash. After all, trash and garbage are NOT the same. (Garbage is animal/plant waste, including food.)
Finally, I settled on a garbage truck.
The back of the garbage truck.

Who invented the first garbage bag? Harry Wasylyk, a Canadian inventor from Winnipeg, Manitoba, along with Larry Hansen of Lindsay, Ontario, invented the disposable green polyethylene garbage bag for the commercial industry and it was later mass produced by other companies for home use. (source: http://www.wiki.answers.com/ )


Is garbage "public property"? Not necessarily. It depends on the state and the state's laws. Here are examples from http://www.answers.yahoo.com/.

1. A criminal throws out a knife that was used to commit an assault. The police are allowed to take his garbage, search it, and use that evidence against him. The courst have ruled that since he threw it out by the curb, he didn't want it. It is admissable evidence.

2. A restaurant serves beverages in aluminum cans. They collect them all, and then throw them in privately-owned waste company's dumpster because they have a contract to do so. Then, two dudes in a truck pull up, load up the truck's bed with cans, and then take them and sell them as scrap metal. That is stealing, and could be prosecuted.

3. You dispose of items and put them out by the side of the road for pick-up by the sanitation company. Dude comes along and sees something he'd like for his own personal use. That's probably okay.


How much does a garbage man make? The average salary is $24,000 plus benefits. (http://www.ask.com/)


Did you know . . . "Garbage" is a rock band formed in 1991 in Madison, Wisconsin? (http://www.ask.com/)
Did you know . . . Garbage is unreferenced data in a computer's memory? (Wikipedia.)
Did you know . . . Every year, the United States generates approximately 230 million tons of "trash"--about 4.6 pounds per person per day. Less than one-quarter of it is recycled; the rest is incinerated or buried in landfills. (http://www.learner.org/)
[Trash and garbage aren't the exact same, although the terms are frequently used interchangeably.]
Other participants in the weekly PhotoHunt are here.

18 comments:

VioletSky said...

And informative, to boot!
Ever seen a clean garbage truck? Thought not.

srp said...

I went for the trash route... though I do think a bit of garbage from the workers lunches has been thrown in there as well. I take some of the garbage like old potato peels and put it out in the preserve... our raccoons will eat anything... and maybe stay away from the bird feeders.

Marites said...

that is really one very informative post. :) I played too.

Dianne said...

Good info!
I couldn't 'wrap my head' around garbage either, so did 'recycled' a division of trash. ; )

candi said...

Very interesting information. Nice shot of the garbage truck.

Happy weekend.

Tara R. said...

I always enjoy your backstories on these themes. 'Garbage' is one of my fav bands too.

kayerj said...

nice shot! my photo hunt is here Thanks

Anneke (Mudhooks) said...

Very informative! I had no idea that it was fellow Canadians who invented the garbage bag. I am not sure whether to be proud of that fact or not!

Margaret Hall said...

Ok, so it is evident that I don't play, but is there a new subject a week, and are you the selector? I think this is amazing fun! Then it is your own photos, and then posting...or do you also post from the net?...Loved your info on garbage, and the rules of such...
Always fun to come here to read...
FINALLY got a chance.

jams o donnell said...

The amount of waste we produce is frightening. It is somewhat less per head (I think) here in the UK but it is still a daunting figure.

Mary said...

Sherry,

Enjoyed your Photo Hunt today and yes, Canadians invented garbage bags, among other things.

Played along on the quizz. It was fun.

Blessings,
Mary

Carver said...

Great post for the theme. I didn't realize that garbage and trash weren't the same thing.

Alice Audrey said...

Trash and garbage aren't close enough? Well now you tell me.

RJ Flamingo said...

I guess you could say I went the "trash" route, too, although I didn't show you the pantry, where I did have to throw out many canned items that had been sitting there for a gazillion years, rusting and bulging. Does that make mine qualify as "garbage" now? :-)

YTSL said...

$24,000 - that's per annum, right? If so, that's not enough for what they have to do, I reckon.

And yet, that's still a lot more money than garbage men in most other parts of the world make. Frankly, I think garbage collectors deserve way more money than the guys working in, say, Wall Street... :S

dixymiss said...

Enjoyed this "trashy talk!" ;-)

Ms D said...

Haha! Very informative! Thanks! Love your blog! ;)

Rebecca Mecomber said...

Great post! I know more about garbage than all my friends, after this weekend!

Thanks for visiting my post last week.

Mrs. Mecomber
http://newyorktraveler.net

Have a good weekend!

 
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