Esther Jantzen

*PHOTO ESSAY: An Incomparable Dump—Island Recycling on Whidbey

House-sitting, Local Color, Nomad Life, PHOTO ESSAYS, TRAVEL / by

*PHOTO ESSAY: An Incomparable Dump—Island Recycling on Whidbey

House-sitting, Local Color, Nomad Life, PHOTO ESSAYS, TRAVEL / by

One day while house sitting on Whidbey Island, I notice the recycling boxes in my homeowners’ tidy garage are filling up. I’ll be conscientious, I decide. I google and find the address for Island Recycling.

I load up my car and enter the info in my GPS.

Little do I know that I’m in for another “unique place” experience. Little do I know I’ll go back to that place several times, just to take pictures. Really? Well, yes.

I turn in at the driveway off Rt 525, north of Freeland, and see a spread of several buildings, trucks, a semi-tractor-trailer. I see designated areas for rebar, electronics, televisions, paper—newsprint and mixed, cardboard, plastics, glass, toys. I see tea kettles lining the roofs of several sheds and I see humor everywhere I turned to look. And the place was pretty darn clean, for a dump.

Patrons drive up on the right side here, park briefly, and unload their contributions. There are more sheds and buildings on either side of this entrance.

See that blue sign near the center of the pix above? Here’s a close-up.

This is created of plastic container lids. How long did it take to collect and sort all those? The letters on the right side, some in red, spell RECYCLE.

Now, have you ever heard of a dump with a fan club? Or its own bumper stickers?

When I saw that bumper sticker on a car in Langley, I knew I had to go back to the dump to find out about Susie. It turns out Susie was a one-of-a-kind soul who worked there for years.

Ever heard of a dump frequented by Elvis…who also has his own bumper sticker?

The Elvis cut out stands center stage in the Mixed Paper shed. I’m not sure why shredded paper is evil. Perhaps bags with it could open up and become confetti all over the grounds?
And here is Elvis’s personal bumper sticker.

On one of my visits, I chanced upon a woman efficiently clipping off unrecycleable bits of electric Christmas lights, and then tossing the wires that could be harvested for copper into a huge bin.

I started a conversation with her. Jill, it turned out, is a sparkingly bright, gregarious, interesting woman. She’s the wife of the owner; she’s been at Island Recycling for 30 years (after living and teaching in Japan for a spell and raising her children). Her husband started the business 40 years ago, she said, and they have 16 employees. But they’re beginning to think about retirement and about serious travel.

This is Jill, the owner’s wife, in front of Pat, the Irish saint who now wields a golf club.

The office of Island Recycling could also be named the Museum of the Debris of Contemporary Culture:

Lest you can’t read the signs–one says, “Beware pickpockets and loose women.”  Another is “Hippies use side door.”
I appreciate businesses that aren’t afraid to show their political colors.

And now for two more favorite signs:

I wished I’d tossed a few bottles myself just for the fun of it.
Hmm. I wonder if I can park here to just take a picture.

So, I came away from my recycling errand with a refined attitude: there really are people who gleefully turn lemons into lemonade. I could learn from them.