Down in the Dumps

In Ideal Corners, a tiny town near Brainerd, trips to the local dump were a family tradition. My grandfather would pop the enormous trunk of his robin’s-egg blue Oldsmobile and we’d load it up with cans, done-in appliances, or dozens of leaf bags. In the spring, he’d bring along binoculars in order to watch the wild animals—black bears and so forth—lured by the aroma of rotting trash. It was more exciting than any episode of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.

Nowadays, things are less wild. The dump has been spiffed up and renamed the “Ideal Corners Transfer Station.” There are no more scrounging bears or hawks diving for rodents. Gone are the mountains of plastic and eggshells, and along with them the exciting prospect of a garbage avalanche.

In this new age of trash, recycling must be dutifully sorted into various bins. Old batteries, and other toxic waste, are set aside in the garage for environmentally responsible disposal. Customers must sign a ledger, describe what they left, and pay accordingly. Trucks then haul everything away thirty miles to a forty-acre pit lined with protective clay and plastic.

“Nope, you can’t bury toxic waste anymore,” said Doug, the transfer station manager. “The dump in Brainerd cost eight and a half million to build and they thought it would last thirty years. It’s only been eight years and it’s half full!” On a recent Wednesday afternoon, a few buddies kept Doug company as they lollygagged on discarded couches and stained Barcaloungers. Inside his little office, a salvaged chandelier dangled from the ceiling and the radio with the coat-hanger antenna blasted live coverage of Bean Hole Days in nearby Pequot Lakes.

Given rapidly dwindling natural resources, a new subculture of salvagers now keeps watch on the dump. Steven, a junk dealer wearing gigantic sunglasses, examines incoming vehicles for worthy finds. “Do you want to buy an icebox from 1906?” he asked me. “You can’t find them anymore. I heard they’re going for hundreds of dollars on eBay, but I don’t know anything about computers.” Doug told me that Steven looks for storm windows and breaks the glass out to sell the aluminum. “I don’t know where he takes the metal now. There used to be a guy down in Crosby who had an aluminum smelter, but he got lead poisoning.”

During my afternoon visit, the pickings were slim, but everyone was excited anyway. “You know today’s a big day here, right?” Doug asked. “The baler is here and is compacting all the appliances.” He pointed down a dirt hill to a cherry picker lifting rusty, old machines from a thirty-foot mound of old refrigerators, washing machines, and ranges. Making a considerable racket, the hydraulic press smashed each appliance into a mangled square bale and spit it out onto a pile.

The garbage pits are gone from Ideal Corners because, simply put, trash is just too valuable to waste. After the compactor finishes, Doug explained, the bales will be shipped “to Winnipeg where the insulation and plastic is blown off. They take out the mercury switches. You know, the kill switches, the Freon, and all that. Then they ship it by train to Seattle. From there it’s sent by boat to China where they melt it down.”

“In the end, we buy it all back!” —Eric Dregni


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