Cameron Bren
On his porch, Andy Bose plays the violin he found during Hippie Christmas.
Andy Bose had high hopes for Hippie Christmas this year. He wanted to find a smartphone somewhere among the trash lining the streets of downtown during the UW-Madison student moving period. In years past he’s salvaged everything from televisions, stereos and computers to food, booze and water bongs. Bose struck out on his quest for a smartphone, but found some unexpected bounty: a box of 35 one-pound packages of Caribou Coffee (Christmas flavor), a cannabis oil vaporizer, a violin and a Fitbit.
Each year, during the week leading up to Aug. 14, apartment dwellers dump unwanted furniture, appliances, clothing and other random junk onto the curb. In each of the past four years, the city has hauled more than 500 tons of garbage to the landfill.
But for Bose, much of that trash is treasure. “When I was younger I was very frugal, not just in terms of saving money but also using only the resources I had available,” he says. “When I moved to Madison and saw the piles of stuff getting thrown in the landfill, it set me off.”
This year, Bose found plenty of interesting — some would say scary — items like injectible antibiotics and prescription pills including beta blockers and Valium. “In terms of absurdity, this year I came across a sex machine,” he says, describing it as a robotic pumping arm with a phallus attached. “It’s one of those things you see on the internet but the first time I’ve seen one in real life.”
Bose grabbed it thinking it might be valuable. It turns out to only cost about $150 new, but Bose was able to find another use for it. He makes medicinal mushroom tinctures, which need to be shaken vigorously.
“I found a way of attaching my tincture containers to the machine,” Bose says.
Although Bose is thrilled to be able to sort through free stuff on the curb every year, Madison’s recycling coordinator Bryan Johnson wishes people would stop doing it.
Picking through trash can be dangerous, Johnson says. People risk getting bedbugs or cockroaches and exposing themselves to hazardous waste. Those scavenging for metal are especially at risk. “If they are out there grabbing, say old washing machines with mercury in them, does some backyard metal scrapper really know how to handle that? Or what about the freon in air conditioners?”
Hippie Christmas also creates more work for city crews. “If they are rifling through this stuff making the piles even more unruly, it makes the work that much slower, that much more unsafe,” Johnson says. “Even though I know [people take] the whole Hippie Christmas thing as their birthright, there are dozens and dozens of donation places available in town.
“If you need a cheap couch, I’m pretty sure St. Vinny’s can help you out with that and the money you spend goes back to the community in a pretty positive way,” Johnson adds. “So there are other ways to go about it rather than to scavenge off the curb.”
Despite those donation venues, there has been a steady increase in the amount of trash ending up in the landfill. In 2013, the city hauled 456 tons of trash. The amount peaked last year at 639 tons, before dropping slightly this year to 579 tons. This tonnage does not include the normal weekly collection amount in student neighborhoods. Nor does it include what private trash haulers are picking up from large apartment buildings.
“The jumps are hard to explain and may not be directly linked to donation opportunities available,” Johnson says. “It could be broader economic conditions driving people to donate or landfill more …. It could be the day of the week that the leases end, or some other factor.”
Bose suggests the city divert more of this trash by providing a warehouse where collected items could be temporarily stored. People moving in would have a few days beyond Aug. 15 to go through the stash and take what they want. Leftovers could be donated to thrift stores.
Johnson says it’s not a bad idea but would require either a lot of volunteers or a large staff effort. “Even if we were to manage to create more donation areas, we still need people to use them.”
