How Clean Was My Alley

Today was alley cleanup day and somebody from the city waste collection agency was there to regale us with epic stories of garbage removal to make the smells of elephant-flavored garbage water and dead possum not seem so bad. It seems he used to work for WASA (the DC water works), and in the central offices, they had a live camera feed of everything currently flowing through the sewage pipes. You could sit back and watch everything from back issues of Washingtonian magazine to disposed human babies floating by. Maybe it was for technical reasons, to ensure something large doesn't plug up the system, or for urban-archeological study via waste products. He did not specify if there was a webcam link available.

That day my lifelong question of "why does all garbage smell the same" was finally been answered. It's not that any large amount of various matter mixed together will all become the same substance, but that when any mixture of substances are tied up in a plastic bag and left outside, the bacterium begin to ferment and start to make that uniquely cheesy smell we all know and love.

Mmmm....delicious.

—June 17th, 2006

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