Of all the recent cuts to local budgets, one in particular is raising a stink: cutbacks in garbage collection.

In Livingston, N.J., residents now have to haul their trash to the curb themselves. A budget crisis in Yonkers led to a switch to once-a-week from twice-a-week trash pickups; after resident protests, it was switched back again. Even New York City is weighing charging for collection, an idea that has some city residents trashing City Hall.

“I think it’s just ridiculous,” said Michael Morrell, a retired public-school teacher in Staten Island. “Next thing, they’re going to start charging us for the fire department when we need to make a call.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said last week that he was considering charging residents for garbage pickup as the city looks at “every single thing” to help cope with strapped finances.

Companies and restaurants already pay for garbage pickup, the thinking goes, so why not those living in apartment buildings and residential homes? “We’ll put it in the mix and we’ll see which thing we want,” the mayor said during a news conference last week.

New York City spends $1.2 billion of its $64 billion yearly budget to deal with waste from residences, schools and nonprofits.

Other townships and municipalities across Greater New York are already being forced to make various adjustments in trash collection.

It’s a testament to the severity of local budget crises that garbage collection—a service many residents regard as highly important—is now being put into the mix of possible cuts.

“The stuff that is easy to get rid of has largely been done in the last couple of years. Now things that are generally thought of as essential government services are going to get cut,” said John Weingart, associate director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.

He added: “Governments are facing the kind of unpalatable choices that they haven’t had to face—maybe ever.”

In July, Paramus, N.J., began requiring that residents drag their trash curbside instead of having it picked up elsewhere in their yard. Collection of bulk trash was recently axed in Bridgewater Township. Weekly bulk-trash pickup in North Haven, Conn., will soon be limited to twice a year, in September and April.

“Even if you can trim a half percentage point in your budget, it can be significant,” said Robert Ward, deputy director at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany.

In Yonkers, after trash pickup was slashed to once a week earlier in July, collection workers engaged in a work slowdown to protest the firings that resulted in the cuts, according to town spokesman David Simpson. “There were a lot of calls,” Mr. Simpson said. “People were very frustrated.” The city reverted to twice-a-week service a week ago.

“There have been mayoral elections lost or won over snowplowing,” said Mr. Ward. “I’m not sure there has ever been any lost over cuts in garbage collection, but it’s not something a mayor would generally want to do because voters care about it so much.”

From “The Politics of Garbage” by Joanna Chung and Clifford M. Marks, published July 27, 2010 at The Wall Street Journal.

Combos Facts:

• Combos was the most mentioned and most loved pizza-flavored snack in a recent Slice.com poll.
• Combos will celebrate its official 40th anniversary in 2011.
• Combos has been an “Official Partner of NASCAR” since 2002 and is currently the “Official cheese-filled snack of NASCAR”
• Combos is also a partner of Joe Gibbs Racing and Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 Combos® car, a Toyota Camry
• Kyle Busch has won two Sprint Cup races in the Combos car (Dover in 2008 and Richmond, VA, in 2009) and two Nationwide races in the Combos car (Phoenix and Dover, both in 2010).
• Combos is a supporter of Habitat for Humanity. The company is donating $100,000 to Habitat in 2010 as well as supporting home builds across the U.S. with both volunteers and funding.
• Current flavors for Combos include: Cheddar Cheese Pretzel; Cheddar Cheese Cracker; Nacho Cheese Pretzel; Zesty Salsa Tortilla; Jalapeño Cheddar Tortilla and of course Pizzeria Pretzel and Pepperoni Pizza Cracker.
• Discontinued flavors of Combos include: Mustard Pretzel; Peanut Butter Pretzel; Peanut Butter Cracker; Bacon, Egg and Cheese Cracker; and Cheeseburger Cracker.
• In 2008, the Cheeseburger Cracker variation was manufactured as an exclusive, limited edition promotion for Walmart. Then they vanished, until now. Mars Snackfood US. LLC., reported that Cheeseburger Cracker Combos will be back in Wal-Mart stores this summer.

From “Ode to Combos” by Pizzalicious Lauren, published July 21, 2010 at SeriousEats.com.

It’s something nearly everyone’s been tempted to do at least once. You see someone else’s throwaways on street and think — that would look nice in my place.

“As far as I knew it was a piece of garbage sitting on the curb,” Paul Lawrence said.

But what Lawrence didn’t know when he decided to pick up a discarded air conditioner sitting on the sidewalk in Middle Village, Queens is that once trash hits the curb, it’s technically city property.

And he was breaking the law.

“There was a lady here. I asked the lady can I take the air conditioner. She said go ahead take it. It’s garbage,” Lawrence said.

But not only was he fined $2,000 by a sanitation officer who watched him do it, the car he was driving was impounded. And its owner — Lawrence’s Aunt, 73-year-old Margaret Colavita, was also slapped with a $2,000 fine.

“I said what is this and she said well we have to serve you with this. You’re the owner of the car and it says I gave him permission,” Colavita said.

Department of Sanitation officials said it’s not always illegal to pick up something from the street. It’s only when you’re driving a vehicle that the law gets triggered. Recycling is a revenue source for the city and sanitation officials said the law was “designed to deter organized rings of recycling thefts” that cost the city more than $300,000 a year.

“As the commodity price goes up, theft of that commodity goes up,” Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty said.

Lawrence insisted he wasn’t stealing, but agreed repeat criminals should be punished. However, he said a $2,000 fine for a first-time offense is excessive.

“Two thousand dollars is a pretty hefty fine and I don’t know what law was broken,” Bloomberg said.

Lawrence said he now knows all too well and plans to fight his fine in court. Last year the sanitation department issued 280 summonses for breaking the law and impounded 136 vehicles.

From “NYC Man Fined $2,000 For Taking Discarded Garbage” by Kathryn Brown, published July 12, 2010 at CBS 2 News.

Six brokers sat at a conference table in Chelsea last week comparing woes. They were from competing firms, but they had one thing in common: unsold listings in the Urban Glass House, the Spring Street condo that was Philip Johnson’s final architectural statement. Nearly a third of its 40 units were bought within weeks of its debut in 2005—and then sales stalled. Not one apartment has been resold in five years. (A sponsor unit is just now in contract.) Six have been on the market for months. Four have been marked down, from 6 to 17 percent, and nearly all are asking about the same price or below what they first fetched. A tenth-floor two-bedroom closed in 2006 for $2.469 million; today, it’s listed at $1.895 million and has been since September.

The fickle market is certainly part of this. But another problem lies across the street, where the city plans to put a garage for the Department of Sanitation. Even on this unpolished fringe of Soho, it seems, you can have a little too much grit. Core’s Tom Postilio says, “People come in and they like the product, the building,” but the DSNY garage “is a psychological barrier.” Agrees Corcoran’s Adrian Noriega: “They hear ‘Sanitation,’ and they get scared,” even though the garage won’t be handling actual trash, just trucks.

Early this year, a judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by neighborhood groups to stop the garage. Carole De Saram, president of the Tribeca Community Association, says they’re appealing this summer. Owners in the neighborhood are in a cautious, watch-and-wait mood. “To add a building that should be in a manufacturing area will affect property values, no question,” says Stas Zakrzewski, who lives four blocks from the site. De Saram, a former real-estate agent, says she’s befuddled by the city’s decision, considering that the area was rezoned in 2003 to encourage residential building. “Who the hell in their right mind puts a garbage facility near developments that cost hundreds of millions of dollars?”

Read more from “Garbage In, Garbage Out: What happens when a Department of Sanitation garage is your new neighbor?” by S.Jhoanna Robledo, published July 4, 2010 at New York Magazine.

Whether you volunteer, report oil-slicked wildlife, write to Congress, donate money or boycott BP, there are several actions you can take in response to the unprecedented BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Here are a few ways to help.

1. Report Injured Wildlife and Oiled Beaches – If you live along the Gulf Coast and spot oil damage or wildlife in need of help, the government has set up these hotlines (along with a Website):

To report oiled wildlife: 1-866-557-1401 (Leave a message; they will be checked hourly.)
To report oil spill related damage: 1-800-440-0858
To report oiled shoreline: 1-866-448-5816

2. Volunteer – Volunteers must be trained to be effective, and to avoid health problems that can result from handling oil and oiled wildlife. BP is paying many people to respond to the oil spill, and those workers typically include locals put out of work by the spill. So think twice before you “volunteer” because you don’t want to take work away from a shrimper or a fishermen put out of work – possibly for years – by the spill. That said, the task of cleaning up, laying booms and cleansing what wildlife can be found is enormous.

3. Donate – While BP has pledged to pay all legitimate claims made in relation to the oil spill, the groups working in the area need immediate support (and there’s no guarantee BP will pay every claim victims feel is worthy, especially since U.S. law caps some expenses at $75 million).

See more ways to help the Gulf region at The Daily Green.

New Yorkers across the five boroughs will get the opportunity to express themselves musically this summer as part of Sing For Hope and Make Music New York’s “Play Me I’m Yours” program. The two-week citywide event will feature 60 pianos placed in public spaces throughout New York City.

On June 17, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, joined by City Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate D. Levin and Luke Jerram, the artist who conceived the project, announced the start of the event at Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City. The park, which overlooks the East River and the Manhattan skyline, is one of five Queens locations where the pianos will be placed.

The program officially started on June 21 at Make Music New York’s one-day music festival that featured more than 1,000 free performances in all five boroughs. Available until July 5, the pianos will be individually decorated by local artists, student volunteers, New Yorkers and visitors from around the world who will be encouraged to play them. The “Play Me, I’m Yours” installation is presented by the nonprofit organization Sing for Hope, in partnership with Make Music New York and the city of New York.

From “Play Me, I’m Yours” by Jason D. Antos, published June 23, 2010, at The Queens Gazette.

Have you discovered a dinosaur of a TV set in your attic? You know, the ones made with imitation wood, with knobs instead of buttons? It sure can’t compete with today’s flat-panel units, but it doesn’t have to head straight for the junk pile — if you’re creative. Here’s how to make it do something those plasmas will never pull off: turn it into a fish tank!

Steps:

1. Check if there is a collector who wants your TV. Even if it doesn’t work anymore, there might be someone out there who’s eager to restore it and use it.
2. Rebuild the cabinet out of MDF/Craftwood so that it allows for a flip lid.
3. Stain it with an acrylic estapol satin stain.
4. Attach the original legs to the finished cabinet.
5. Stain or lacquer all the surfaces multiple times to ward off any effects of condensation (the formation of water droplets) in the enclosed space.
6. Build in some ventilation at the back to discourage condensation within the cabinet.
7. Get a tank that is slightly wider and taller than the screen. If your T.V. console won’t fit a standard tank size, you can have a custom one built to fit. Make sure that you leave enough room for the reflector/light (about 6 cm). A remote ballast light is a good idea, as it takes up very little room and you can get the tank and water level higher than the top of the screen.
8. Mount the powerboard outside the cabinet at the back (in case of water spillage or condensation issues).
9. Place the air pump inside the cabinet to suppress the noise. It can be mounted outside if there is not enough room.
10. Fill and cycle the tank properly and introduce the stars of your show — the fish!

From “How to Convert an Old TV Into a Fish Tank” at WikiHow

Listen up, you heinous little motherfuckers. I am not playing. Before I deliver the grim news of your collective fates, let me give you a brief synopsis of how you have driven me to the brink of insanity over the last three months. Here it is.

Unfortunately, because I am paying over $400 a month in student loans and am therefore very cheap, I made the mistake of accepting a used mattress from a coworker to put on top of my new bed frame and box springs. So. You and I have, by my calculations, been residing together since May. MAY. That’s when I unwittingly brought you and your home into my bedroom. That’s when I became your new food source. Your “host.”

You guys are pretty tricky, I have to tell you. I mean, when I started seeing little purple dots on my toes in the morning, I did what you wanted me to do, which was to blame them on anything and everything under the sun except you. This is because I was wholly unaware that such hideous creatures as yourselves existed. I figured it was a spider, so I vacuumed profusely. Then I thought it was mosquitos, so I busted out the Off. Nothing seemed to be working. But you know this already, don’t you? Yes, you snacked on me all through the month of June, getting your fill of my blood while I snored on, retreating back to the crevices of my mattress just before dawn, leaving no sign or trail.

Ahhh, June. What a peaceful, sane month. Ignorance, in this case, was truly bliss.

But then came July and with July came some strange occurances. You multiplied, didn’t you? Got a little more hungry, huh? You must have because that’s when my body started to revolt against whatever it is you injected me with when you were gnawing on my flesh. See, I started having these weird allergic reactions. Getting hives for no reason at all. So I changed my laundry detergent to something dye-free, fragrance-free. That didn’t work. Then I changed my soap to something hypoallergenic. No, that didn’t work either. And the hives kept getting worse, until one morning, I woke up with not only hives all over my chest and back, but about twenty purple dots on my feet, which I (ignorance, remember) attributed to the allergies. Remember that morning, my little roommates? Do you? That’s the morning my throat swelled shut and I had to be rushed to the emergency room.

You had us all stumped, from the ER doc to the allergist. They ran tests, researched, poked, prodded, scraped… All to no avail. The diagnosis? I was allergic to myself, because they could find nothing that I was allergic to otherwise. I was ALLERGIC TO MYSELF?? Yes, that was the diagnosis. But they were so very wrong, weren’t they? You guys are so slick as to leave bites that disappear pretty quickly and could be ANYTHING, right? So I took my Allegra and went to sleep every night and you fed on, didn’t you?

Then came August. I was dealing with being hivey all the time and rashy some of the time and generally very uncomfortable, but I was dealing, you know? And then you showed your faces. Literally. See, I have it figured out now. The grandaddy of all bedbugs came to play, didn’t he? He must have been starving because he gave me three bites I just couldn’t ignore. I mean, these were nasty, bright red and the size of a penny and really fucking itchy. That’s when the lightbulb went on, bitches. There was something FUNKY going on in my bedroom and I was on to you, I just didn’t have a clue that you were so stealthy. Really, you are. But I looked you up. God bless the internet. Yep, I Googled your asses and when I typed in “bites while sleeping,” there you were. You are some ugly motherfuckers, too. I’m not just saying that because you’ve been stealing my blood without my knowledge or consent, either. You are really ugly.

This is where the insanity begins, because in order to prove that you really were cohabitating with me, I had to willingly and knowingly be your food and catch you eating me. This, as you know, meant sleeping (and I use the word “sleeping” very loosely at this point) with a flashlight beside me and waking up intermittently throughout the night for five nights straight to examine my body and catch you in the middle of snacktime. Thing is, you instinctively knew I wasn’t sleeping, didn’t you? So you held out for as long as you could. But one of you was weaker than the rest. He couldn’t last, he couldn’t hang and he gave you up, huh?

So there I was, reading my book, completely not expecting you guys for several more hours when he ran out from under my sheet, straight past my nose, towards the edge of the bed. Now I told you before and I’ll tell you again: I am not playing. I smashed that motherfucker so fast he had no clue what hit him. And what came flying out of his crushed body? Come on, you know. YES! MY BLOOD!!

Alright, bitches. I have you now. I saved his corpse. I bought a magnifying glass. I called Terminix and I slept on the living room floor for two nights. And when Drew, the friendly Terminix employee, showed up at my door last night, I told him straight out what I have already told you twice: I am not playing. Drew and I threw out the evil devil spawn mattress. We threw out the box springs. We threw out the fan, the bookcase, the books, everything in the back closet. All of it, gone. GONE, I tell you. And then Drew, my new best friend, sprayed the FUCK out of the entire house. I was not playing. He said it probably would be okay to just get the bedroom. Fuck that. You bitches have been giving me hives for three fucking months now. You’re dead, it’s over. We left no crack unsprayed, no piece of funiture unbombed. That’s right, assholes, I BOMBED YOUR ASSES. TWICE. And tomorrow, I’m coming for the couch and chairs. They’re history. As I said, you’re pretty slick, so I can see you thinking you can make a new home in my living room. Go fuck yourselves. And if any of you survived the initial attacks, be warned. Drew and I have a little deal and it’s called HE’S COMING BACK in two weeks to bomb you again. And then he will come back once every 90 days for the next YEAR. So be prepared. YOU WILL DIE. I am not playing.

From “An Open Letter to My Bedbugs” posted on Craigslist, August 19, 2006.

Red Jacket Orchards, a third-generation, family-run business in upstate New York, has demonstrated its commitment to social and environmental responsibility by earning certification from Food Alliance for its sustainable agriculture and food handling practices. The result is a bumper crop of certified apricots, plums, and prunes now in the New York City Greenmarket and metro area retail stores.

Food Alliance certification verifies that Red Jacket Orchards’ farm operations meet high standards for soil and water conservation, safe and fair working conditions, responsible pest and nutrient management, protection of wildlife habitat, and other agricultural concerns. The company’s packing facilities are certified to similar criteria plus specific facility management issues like solid waste and recycling, energy conservation and reduction of toxic materials.

Food Alliance Certified apricots, plums, and prunes from Red Jacket Orchards are available now at NYC Greenmarkets, and at retail stores such as Whole Foods, Wegmans, Fresh Direct, Price Chopper, Tops, King Kullen, Food Emporium, Fairway, ShopRite, Red Jacket Orchards farm stand, and other Metro NY Gourmet retailers.

From “Local and Sustainable Apricots, Plums, and Prunes Feed the Big Apple” published by a Food Alliance press release, August 12, 2009.

Can golf balls save the gulf?

That question hangs in the air here at a BP crisis center as hundreds of engineers and scientists work to cap the undersea well that for more than three weeks has spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Officials with BP and other companies involved in the effort, who discussed the plans in detail at some of the operations rooms, said the best of several options included a “junk shot,” which could be tried within the week. The method involves pumping odds and ends like plastic cubes, knotted rope, even golf balls — Titleists or whatever, BP isn’t saying — into the blowout preventer, the safety device atop the well.

As Rube Goldberg as it sounds, the basic techniques are straightforward and have been used successfully on out-of-control wells around the world. “The problem here is they all have to be executed 5,000 feet under the water,” said Pat Campbell, a well-control expert who is working with BP on the project.

The enormous depth, with its low temperatures and high pressure, greatly complicates planning and execution and could cause the approach to fail, just as earlier stopgap efforts like a large containment dome did not work. One potential problem, the officials said, is the presence of several right-angle turns in the plumbing of the blowout preventer where the objects could become stuck.

The goal of the junk shot is to force-feed the preventer, the device that failed when the disaster unfolded on April 20, until it becomes so plugged that the oil stops flowing or slows to a relative trickle. That would be followed by a “top kill,” the pumping of heavy mud into the well to overcome the pressure of the rising oil, followed in turn by cement that would permanently seal it.

Read more of “‘Junk Shot’ Is Next Step for Leaking Gulf of Mexico Well” Published May 12, 2010 at The New York Times.