h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The reginal air quality board is trying to reduce the amount of PM10 particles, as well as carcinogenics released from area burn barrels. This activity is state wide, although the rules and limitations vary from county to county, which irks people. For those people who need something to discuss with the local waitress or receptionist or mechanic, the rule is a circle of widening mis-information or an example of government "interference".

I have lived in rural communities for the last twenty years and what counts as "rural" in itself needs some definition. Small cities of 50,000 want to consider themselves rural when it suits them. Burning your trash where there is little other way to dispose of it is just a fact of life, unless you intend to take the evolutionary route. I am now wedged betwixt four little "communities" of 800-1500 apiece; a few small commercial farms, organic and not-so, retired "dream home" urban exiles, wishing for the old-days loggers, gas station owners, federal and state specialists trying to manage land that's been abused. Why do we burn? It's a combination of convenience, practicality, tradition, intelligence and stupidity. We burn yard waste in quantities too great to compost on an individual scale. True, if we chipped and composted collectively, we'd have one booming business providing landscaping materials and soil enrichment products, but that kind of cooperation is hard come by. We burn because it's 45-65 miles to to nearest dump even in this collection of NAPA stores, gas stations and golf courses someone had the audacity to provide with mail service! We burn at night to provide a venue for socializing - there's nothing like a bonfire at night. A burn barrel? Now you're talking trash! You learn a lot about your neighbors watching what they do with their trash. A constantly burning barrel suggests they dispose of their incomes on a steady basis. The smell of plastics suggests they are either proudly defying everything medical science knows about cancer, or just proudly defiant of anyone suggesting there are limits to acceptable behavior in public. No burn barrel can mean they drive the 45-65 miles to the dump or that they load up the truck at night and unload it down a drainage on public land for the Forest Service or the County to deal with. The best way for me to take care of my trash is to generate as little as possible, compost the greens, recycle what I know will be taken, burn the yard clippings, and yes, if I need to drive 65 miles to buy groceries, load up the trash and let the suburbanites who pass me call me a hick.