This!
Such is the case with The Recycling Foundation – the privately owned, for-profit company in charge of processing the city of Lafayette’s recyclables, located on I-G Ln. near Cameron St. So what gives? Is it lack of manpower? Abject laziness? Or an overabundance of recycling enthusiasts in the Lafayette area?
It seems that a fire on May 6, 2010 at the recycling facility – determined by Lafayette Department fire investigators to be caused by either mechanical heat or a spark from a Bobcat machine used to move bales of recyclables – may be part of the problem. Since the fire, recyclables have been slowly, and ever so gradually, accumulating into a mountainous pile of paper, plastic, glass, and other recyclable materials – a “green mountain" of sorts.
"They had a fire with bales of recyclables – big 900 lbs bales – that caught fire. A machine shot some sparks and it just happened to get on some shredded paper and it sparked up that bale. By the time they noticed it, it was out of control,” says Mark Pope of the Lafayette city-parish government Environmental Quality Division. “I have not been there in a while, but my guess is that the overrun is remnants of the fire that they haven’t had a chance to clean up. So here we are months later and they still have remnants on the ground. We’ve asked them to clean up it up numerous times, but they’re peacemealing it.”
The May fire at The Recycling Foundation facility was reported to have quickly spread, causing two additional fires on the premise as a result of high winds. Firefighters remained on the scene until midnight to extinguish the blazing piles of recyclables.
Whitney Broussard, a graduate student at UL at Lafayette, who submitted the photo accompanying this article, says that he has seen little change in the amount of clean-up occurring at the Lafayette recycling facility. “I go there twice a month to drop off my recyclables, and that big pile of stuff has been there since then and grown bigger since I moved outside the city limits in July 2009,” says Broussard. “The pile is about 15’ to 20’ high and looks very unkempt. The material looks like it is semi-sorted and waiting to be processed, but the question for me is how long can that stuff stay out there before rotting and becoming unusable? How long before that stuff just ends up having to be taken to the dump? Are they overwhelmed? Do they need a bigger facility? Do they need more manpower?”
Mauri Robicheaux, manager at The Recycling Foundation, claims that the growing pile at their facility is leftover debris from the fire. “The pile is the material that we’re dealing with from the fire we had in May. None of that is fresh or recently picked up. That is stuff we’re trying to sift through our system,” says Robicheaux. “Some of the material is still good, so we’re slowing sending it through our system in Baton Rouge to be able to pull out the stuff that we can still recycle from it. Most of the plastics and metal is still good in it. And some of the paper.”
JUNE 17 If anyone ever wonders why Saints fans hate Atlanta with a capital H, here's a good indication. Radio "professionals" at an Atlanta station created an entire segment around making fun of former Saints player Steve Gleason, who is now paralyzed by ALS. Listen, nobody's ever accused DJs of being rocket scientists. But how could someone think it is amusing to pretend to ask a man with a degenerative, fatal disease if he will be alive next week? The DJs have been fired, and are now whining about how gutless their former bosses are. Wow.
JUNE 18 Here's the latest from the Advocate on the fatal hit-and-run accident allegedly involving the president of the Livingston Parish School Board. He's accused by police of hitting a 21-year-old man on a highway early Sunday and driving away. The man died at a hospital later. On Monday, police seized the president's truck and towed it away. But he's available for board meetings: apparently a $500 bond is sufficient for this type of thing over in St. Helena Parish.
JUNE 18 Former broadcast journalist Griffin Scott has posted this plea on his blog for financial assistance from his readers. Scott, who says he was fired after he wrote something fairly innocuous (for Facebook) on his wall, is suing a media giant for his job back. He's framed himself as David going after a bloated media giant, and he's probably not far off.
JUNE 18 Here's a fairly absurd column posted on DIG Magazine about the completely absurd practice of naming killer storms. Tornadoes don't have names. Blizzards don't have names. But hurricanes do, and there's a big process to bestow them, Jacques Cormery writes. He's right about the crazy assemblage of names -- this year, there's everything from Tanya to Humberto -- and his idea that we don't waste good names on killer storms is a good one.
JUNE 17 Political columnist John Maginnis has some advice for Louisiana Republicans: grow up. After the schism that occurred in this past session - fiscal hawks teaming up with Democrats to spank the Republican "majority" and hand Gov. Jindal his, er, aspirations for continued solon control -- they need to figure out how to get along with each other, Maginnis writes.
JUNE 17 Here's the Picayune's obit story for Dorothy 'Miss Dot' Domilise, the lady who made poboys at the uptown restaurant that bears her name. Miss Dot moved to New Orleans during World War II, where she met and married her husband Sam. When she passed away Friday she was 90, and had spent more than 60 of those years working at the restaurant on Annunciation Street.
JUNE 17 This editorial in the Advocate speaks in favor of the consent decrees that have federal judges overseeing police operations and the sheriff's parish prison in New Orleans. Mayor Landrieu and Sheriff Gusman can't get along, so outside forces, like the Inspector General and the judges, are needed to make sure things run right, the editorial opines.
JUNE 18 Here's a post from Manny Schewitz on Forward Progressives that is good for a chuckle. Manny had an epiphany back in November, and is sharing it with us today: he believes that Fox "News" is killing the GOP by pandering to right wing nuts. Now, don't get it twisted: Manny's not broke up about it. He says he enjoys watching the downward spiral with a shot of whiskey and "a schadenfreude chaser."
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