Trash collection and waste disposal aren't the most environmentally-friendly industries. Every aspect of it is, if you'll pardon the pun, "dirty," from the vehicles used to collect garbage to the ways in which our throways are destroyed or disposed.
Perhaps it won't be turned into a "green" industry any time soon. It seems that the best anyone can do is to transform one stage of the process at a time. Justin Bondesen and Jess Cooper recognize as much. Their efforts, says Bondesen, might be "really small" in "the scheme of things" but, he hopes, that it will show that thinking creatively about waste disposal is possible.
He and Cooper founded Spoke Folks. The Norway, Maine-based company is using bicycles instead of trucks to pick up trash.
Bondesen admits that this change is "nothing compared to" what will need to be done "to undo global warming from depending on trucks for decades." His and Cooper's work, they say, is part of their mission to get residents and businesses to rethink what, and how, they discard.
They think that working from bicycles instead of trucks "is a lot more personal," in the words of Cooper. And, getting people to think about the environment starts, for her and Bondesen, with their connections to their community. Those ties have been reinforced by their hiring of two additional cyclists to haul trash, and by making their company a co-operative that is locally- and employee-owned.
In other words, they understand that caring for the environment is inseparable from strengthening communal bonds. Scientists, policy makers and thinkers have been saying as much for decades, but people are more receptive to just about any message if it comes from someone with whom they perceive as one of their own.
In addition to carting garbage, Spoke Folks is expanding their philosophy of replacing gas pedals with bicycle pedals: They are offering a delivery service.
