Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

When you can’t get rid of a mattress & box spring because… May 27, 2023

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A full-size mattress and box spring fill the back of our van. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

MONDAY EVENING RANDY AND I crammed a full-size used mattress and box spring into the back of our van. It was not an easy task, but we squeezed both inside. We intended to drop the worn out set off at the Rice County Landfill the next day upon our return from a medical appointment in Northfield. Sometimes, though, plans go awry.

En route to Northfield early Tuesday morning, we noticed smoke billowing in the distance. Randy said he’d seen the same smoke on Monday, but much thicker, blacker. Burning tires type of smoke. The closer we got to Northfield, the denser the smoke, enough to warrant turning on the headlights. Smoke settled like fog upon the landscape. The air smelled putrid.

Before we left Northfield, we learned the fire was at the county landfill, a blaze which began Monday evening among all that trash. Still, we were hopeful we could drop off the mattress and box spring. What were we thinking? Randy turned the van off Minnesota State Highway 3 onto the road leading to the landfill. There a portable electronic sign flashed that the landfill was closed to the public and open to licensed haulers only.

So here we are, many days later, driving around with an old mattress and box spring filling the bulk of our van. The latest update from the county states that the landfill will remain closed to non-licensed haulers at least through Monday. There are health and environmental concerns related to the still smoldering (maybe still burning) garbage. I appreciate that local and state officials are monitoring, testing, protecting.

For county residents like us who need to get rid of household items, county officials have now provided a list of local licensed garbage haulers who are accepting things like mattresses and box springs. I called two haulers. One quoted me a price of $65, the other $70 for each piece. So we’re talking $130-$140, a price we don’t want to pay.

I then checked the county landfill website for disposal pricing. There are three options: $25 for each piece if they’re recyclable. What makes a mattress and box spring recyclable? I have no idea. Next, $35/each with prior permission. Finally $55/each without prior permission. Permission from whom? And why is prior permission needed? I appreciate clarity. (And I thought to myself, no wonder people dump mattresses and box springs in ditches if disposals costs range from $50-$110.)

What also remains unclear are how long the fire will burn/smolder, how the environment and air quality have been impacted, and how the health of anyone who’s breathed in that smoke has been affected. Randy and I traveled through that smoke, breathed it in on our drive to and from and during our time in Northfield.

And we live only eight miles from the landfill, which was near enough for that smoke to drift…and we did close the windows in our house Thursday evening because of a putrid odor. Was the smell from the landfill fire? I don’t know. As for that bed set, it’s still stuffed in the back of the van.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Shoo, go away litterbugs February 21, 2022

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Lying on the sidewalk in front of my house, a beer bottle, one of many that land there, on the boulevard and in the yard. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2017)

LIVING ALONG A BUSY STREET means more than dealing with noisy traffic. It also means dealing with litter. Tossed beer bottles and cans. Fast food bags and containers. Lots of those. Even a tire, which rolled off a vehicle and slammed into the side of our house, just missing the gas meter many years ago. And this winter, a stop sign propelled into the yard after a car went out of control on the icy street, jumped the curb and took out the sign.

Litter photographed several months ago at River Bend Nature Center in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2021)

It bugs me when people litter. The phrase “Don’t be a litterbug” comes to mind. If you’re of a certain age, you perhaps remember that 1960s anti-littering ad campaign. Lady Bird Johnson (First Lady to President Lyndon B. Johnson) championed efforts to stop littering and to limit billboards visually littering our roadways.

Hiking boots, tossed into the creek at Falls Creek County Park, rural Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo October 2021)

As a teen, I once picked up litter from road ditches in my home county of Redwood. Employed through a southwestern Minnesota summertime program for low income families, I joined three other girls in working for the county highway department. One day we were tasked with collecting litter. Now decades later I recall only two of the many items we gathered from ditches—a dirty diaper and a torn up love letter. During our noon lunch break, we pieced together that letter. I wish I recalled the words written on that lined notebook paper. But I only remember how entertained we were.

Sometimes balls roll down the hill and into our yard, never to be retrieved by children, but by me. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2017)

Thankfully we’ve come a long ways in eliminating litter—although I still see plenty—and in reducing trash sent to the landfill. Recycling helps. My eldest daughter and her husband even participate in organic recycling. In this program offered through their south metro county, they save food scraps, tissues, napkins and more which can be recycled. Yes, it’s extra work. But I applaud this additional effort to limit what goes into our landfills.

I photographed this abandoned refrigerator on the shoulder of a gravel road just outside Faribault last fall. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo October 2021)

Of all the littering, other than in my own yard, I’m particularly bothered by the dumping of appliances, mattresses and furniture into ditches and along roadways. I recognize getting rid of these unwanted items can prove costly. Some cities host annual community clean-up days to collect items like these. And maybe that’s the solution because not everyone can afford disposal. Make the disposal easy, convenient and free, or low cost.

To the left in this image, you can see the black tire mark on the siding from a tire that came off a vehicle and rolled down the hill, slamming into our house. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

Therein lies a benefit of living along a busy street. Whenever Randy and I want to get rid of something, because we’ve upgraded or no longer need the item, we set it curbside tagged with a FREE sign. And each time, someone stops to claim our discards. Swing set. Recliner. Lamp. End table. Headboard and frame. Bookshelf. And more items that I’m not recalling. Sure, maybe we could have sold these things, but we didn’t want the hassle. And, if someone needed what we no longer needed, then we were happy to give it away.

I found this tire repair tool in a street corner flowerbed by our house. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2017)

But please, dear people, who pass by our house either on foot or by vehicle, we don’t need your litter.

TELL ME: What litter/discards/trash bother you in particular? What especially unusual items have you seen tossed in a ditch, onto a sidewalk, along the road, at a nature center…? Do you recycle and, if yes, what?

© Copyright 2022 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

My yard is not the landfill & other examples of littering May 19, 2017

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AS A TEEN, I LABORED one summer for the Redwood County Highway Department through a program for low income youth. Our team of four high school students mostly plotted surveyors’ work onto graph paper, but also flagged one day and picked up litter in road ditches.

That experience of gathering debris which motorists and their passengers tossed out windows left me with zero tolerance for litter. Pick up a dirty disposable diaper, too much paper (with the exception of the torn love letter we found and pieced together over lunch) and too many beverage containers and you can appreciate my perspective.

I don’t understand why people use the roadside as a public dumping grounds for trash they are too lazy to toss into the garbage.

 

 

What prompted this post? The first was the recent deposit of a McDonald’s bag into the middle of the side street by my Faribault home. The second was the dropping, or tossing, of a beer bottle onto the sidewalk in my front yard a few days later. At least the glass didn’t shatter.

 

I found this tire repair tool in a street corner flowerbed.

 

I live along a busy street on a corner lot which means lots of stuff—newspapers, Styrofoam containers, plastic bags, cans, bottles and even a tire repair tool—ends up on my property.

 

This ball rolled into my yard this winter.

 

I’ve acquired a few balls over the years that have rolled down the side street hill and into my yard. Typically I have no idea from whence they’ve come.

 

 

To the left in this image, you can see the black tire mark on the siding.

 

Once a tire broke loose from a car and careened down the hill, just missing the gas hook-up on the side of the house. A black rubber streak still marks that near disaster. Thankfully the motorist claimed his tire.

A driver also claimed his car when it rolled, driverless, down a steep side street and struck my next door neighbor’s house many years ago.

The run-away tire and car are not exactly litter. But I expect tread-bare tires are dumped in ditches and vehicles are abandoned where they shouldn’t be. I don’t understand this illegal dumping. Why do people do this?

 

Photographed at River Bend Nature Center on Saturday afternoon.

 

I especially don’t understand the leaving behind of trash at a nature preserve. On Saturday I spotted a Burger King cup on a bench in the outdoor amphitheater at River Bend Nature Center. A nature center, for gosh sakes. This is the last place I would expect to see improperly disposed of trash.

 

TELL ME: What’s the worst example of littering you’ve seen?

Recently, the Trinity Faribault Radio Club cleaned a section of Interstate 35 near Faribault through the Adopt-a-Highway program. Seven individuals picked up 13 (40-gallon) bags of trash. The traveling trophy for the most unusual find was awarded to the volunteer who found a 10-foot long motor home awning.

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling