Quote:What an embarrassing, yet telling photo for Memphis.

The one that showed the floating trash in McKellar Lake on the cover of the Local News section last Sunday.

Remember that one? It showed two river cleanup volunteers on their boat looking out at McKellar Lake, which is the main Memphis harbor on the Mississippi River.

Harbor. River. You might think of yachts, pristine paddling for a canoe, birds and tranquility.

But you'd be way wrong.

The photo of McKellar Lake looked more like a floating Dumpster.

Plastic bottles. Styrofoam. Grocery bags. Liquor bottles. Toilet paper. A big soggy mess right on the Mississippi River.

Rubbish from Greater Memphis has flowed down Nonconnah Creek and into the harbor from streets in both the poor parts of town and the richer suburbs.

Trashy Memphis isn't something we like to think about. But it's part of the urban landscape. A blight, really, in a city old-timers recall once was considered, back in the 1930s and 1940s, as among the cleanest in America.

No more. Take a drive off the main thoroughfares into the vacant, run-down parts of Memphis and you see the mess. Blowing fast-food bags, emptied-out ashtrays, wadded-up disposable diapers. It's everywhere -- not just McKellar Lake.

The question is, why?

Could it be because we've let ourselves get all wrapped up in our boundaries, our walls, our own worlds?

Think about it for a minute. We have city versus county boundaries; white neighborhood and black neighborhood boundaries; the hard boundaries between my church and yours; the economic boundaries of rich Memphis versus poor Memphis.

It's human nature. We need boundaries, places where we feel comfortable, find our place.

But when we overdo it, when we define our lives only by the boundaries in which we choose to live, it's pretty easy to assume that once your trash disappears from the front of the house, or even out the window of your car, it's done with.

But it's not gone. It just flows downstream, to McKellar Lake, or the overburdened storm sewers, or into some else's yard.

This out of sight, out of mind Memphis mentality isn't limited to trash and garbage.

It's evident in community attitudes about schools, and crime, and poverty, and a lot else.

Yeah, your kids may be doing fine in a private school with other privileged kids. I know mine did.

But if you live in Greater Memphis, you don't really get away from the impact of half the kids in the region struggling in school, struggling with how to become productive adults, struggling to get out of their impoverished boundaries. Their struggles affect who you can hire, who shops at your business, who votes and gets elected in your congressional district.

And yeah, you can move, build a house farther away from the blighted neighborhoods. But then you are driving more, burning more gas, paying the often underreported costs of urban sprawl in utilities and services.

It's tempting to say that you are getting away, walling off, separating yourself from all kinds of nasty problems.

But really, we're one world. One community. One place.

McKellar Lake really is a metaphor for the larger challenge in Memphis of figuring out how we can live together, solve problems together, and not flush our troubles downstream.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/opinion/...memphis-is

And the millennials destroy another once great city.

Uh, we had a flood...we have/or had a trash collection system, but the flood destroyed it...the city is in the process of rebuilding it...it's sad to see the flood force all that trash into the river, though.



Firefighters using boats to rescue motorists:

I use to travel to Memphis all the time, and just never got what anyone saw in the place. I would stay downtown and travel out to this industrial area called Presidents Island. What a schitt hole that place is. Yeah there's Beale St. but BFD every decent sized city has something akin to it. Nashville is much better.

I've heard it's gotten pretty bad over there. I haven't driven through it in the last few years. It starts to get nicer as you head back into Arkansas.

Do they just not have the resources to handle their waste?

http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/2659...cell-phone

(09-24-2014 02:54 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  I've heard it's gotten pretty bad over there. I haven't driven through it in the last few years. It starts to get nicer as you head back into Arkansas.

WOW. How bad is it when someone can say that!?

(09-24-2014 02:55 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(09-24-2014 02:54 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  I've heard it's gotten pretty bad over there. I haven't driven through it in the last few years. It starts to get nicer as you head back into Arkansas.

WOW. How bad is it when someone can say that!?

I think Arkansas saw Memphis and said

"we don't want to be that."

Wait, that article is from 2011...Memphis developed a river trash collection system to deal with and clean that up...it worked well until being damaged by recent floods.

(09-24-2014 02:58 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  Wait, that article is from 2011...Memphis developed a river trash collection system to deal with and clean that up...it worked well until being damaged by recent floods.

What a disaster. But then again liberal cities tend to end up like this.

(09-24-2014 03:00 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  

(09-24-2014 02:58 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  Wait, that article is from 2011...Memphis developed a river trash collection system to deal with and clean that up...it worked well until being damaged by recent floods.

What a disaster. But then again liberal cities tend to end up like this.

You mean cleaned up by a simple and cheap trash collection system until a flash flood hits the area?

a pretty old article mate.

(09-24-2014 03:02 PM)fsquid Wrote:  a pretty old article mate.

I heard it took volunteers 2 months to haul off a half million pounds of trash from that lake alone...because the city didn't have the resources to do it.

(09-24-2014 03:07 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  

(09-24-2014 03:02 PM)fsquid Wrote:  a pretty old article mate.

I heard it took volunteers 2 months to haul off a half million pounds of trash from that lake alone...because the city didn't have the resources to do it.

3 year old story...the city solved the problem with booms to catch the trash for easy clean up.



however, recent flooding washed them away...they are being replaced.

Just to have the residents to throw more garbage into it.

(09-24-2014 03:21 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  Just to have the residents to throw more garbage into it.

a shovel ready job if ever I've seen one...

someone get Mike Rowe down there.

sounds like you're upset that Memphis found a cheap and effective option to clean up and solve that issue from 3 years ago.

(09-24-2014 03:24 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  

(09-24-2014 03:21 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  Just to have the residents to throw more garbage into it.

a shovel ready job if ever I've seen one...

someone get Mike Rowe down there.

sounds like you're upset that Memphis found a cheap and effective option to clean up and solve that issue from 3 years ago.

How embarrassing.

(09-24-2014 03:25 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  

(09-24-2014 03:24 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  

(09-24-2014 03:21 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  Just to have the residents to throw more garbage into it.

a shovel ready job if ever I've seen one...

someone get Mike Rowe down there.

sounds like you're upset that Memphis found a cheap and effective option to clean up and solve that issue from 3 years ago.

How embarrassing.

simple, cheap, and effective solutions are anything but embarrassing...posting articles from 3 years ago...that's embarrassing

Liberal ran and liberal operated, WTG Memphis! Trashy as always.

(09-24-2014 03:29 PM)LSU04_08 Wrote:  Liberal ran and liberal operated, WTG Memphis! Trashy as always.

I agree, our liberals found a simple and cheap solution years ago...WTG Memphis.

(09-24-2014 03:31 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  

(09-24-2014 03:29 PM)LSU04_08 Wrote:  Liberal ran and liberal operated, WTG Memphis! Trashy as always.

I agree, our liberals found a simple and cheap solution years ago...WTG Memphis.

Ban trash cans.