Can You Process....?
Working at an Energy from Waste facility can be interesting. I get a lot of phone calls because somewhere my name appears associated with the facility. I think the Facility Manager did it on purpose so I would get my fair share of bizarre requests. He still got the craziest of all time though.
He once had a message on his phone (thank heavens he didn't have to field this one live) from an obviously disturbed individual asking if he could show up and throw himself in the refuse pit. I'm not going to dwell on this too much but wow. And to be perfectly clear, we don't honor such requests and wouldn't even if we were allowed to.
Today though, I got what is becoming an increasingly common phone call for me. It's the can you process _________ call. Dead animals, toxic plants, avian bird flu vaccine, you name it, we've probably been asked about it. This one was from the Oregon State Liquor Board. Could we process large amounts of confiscated marijuana?
Well, I don't know. Generally speaking, it shouldn't be a problem. We have pollution control equipment that should deal with it well enough, but I get a little worried thinking about a big slug of that going down the chute with some or all of the employees gathered around the hopper for "break time."
You get all kinds of requests in the business, and trash is much more interesting and well...colorful than I ever anticipated. It's fun to talk to the people who work out on the east coast. The company grew up in New Jersey and yeah, everything you've imagined about the trash business and the Sopranos is probably rooted in some truth.
It's pretty awesome.
He once had a message on his phone (thank heavens he didn't have to field this one live) from an obviously disturbed individual asking if he could show up and throw himself in the refuse pit. I'm not going to dwell on this too much but wow. And to be perfectly clear, we don't honor such requests and wouldn't even if we were allowed to.
Today though, I got what is becoming an increasingly common phone call for me. It's the can you process _________ call. Dead animals, toxic plants, avian bird flu vaccine, you name it, we've probably been asked about it. This one was from the Oregon State Liquor Board. Could we process large amounts of confiscated marijuana?
Well, I don't know. Generally speaking, it shouldn't be a problem. We have pollution control equipment that should deal with it well enough, but I get a little worried thinking about a big slug of that going down the chute with some or all of the employees gathered around the hopper for "break time."
You get all kinds of requests in the business, and trash is much more interesting and well...colorful than I ever anticipated. It's fun to talk to the people who work out on the east coast. The company grew up in New Jersey and yeah, everything you've imagined about the trash business and the Sopranos is probably rooted in some truth.
It's pretty awesome.
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