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Far from the flashing cameras and the spotlight-drenched stages that will dominate the public face of the Democratic National Convention, Eugenie Kamrath Mygdal will be busy doing the Democratic Party’s dirty work. Her job will take place well behind the scenes, and it’s not likely she’ll so much as glimpse a notable politician—but she calls the work she will do a “complete necessity” and she’ll be up to her elbows in it for hours at a time.
No, Mygdal isn’t the Democrats’ answer to Karl Rove hatching an intricate plot to swift-boat John McCain, and she’s not a Secret Service agent tasked with eavesdropping on cell phone conversations from a dark-windowed van parked in an obscure Denver alley.
She’s a 68-year-old Fort Collins artist—but a proud transplant from near Waco, Texas, she’d be quick to add—and for 15 hours over two days, she will be picking through mountains of garbage in an un-air-conditioned tent. Her day will start in Fort Collins with a 3 p.m. bus ride to Denver and end when the bus returns around 2:30 a.m.
It’s a job she volunteered to do, meaning she won’t get paid for returning home in the wee hours smelling like everything the Democrats throw away each night.
For Mygdal, though, the toil and the smell are meaningless in comparison to her sense of being able to contribute to two causes she feels passionately about: The DNC and recycling.
“I thought this would be an easy way to benefit the time that the Democrats are going to be in town and I could play my little part, and it’s the part that I thought a lot of people wouldn’t be too interested in doing,” she said. “I think sorting trash and that sort of stuff is not the most glamorous job in the world, but it’s a complete necessity.”
She may be right that it’s not glamorous—after all, the DNC has a roster of 22,000 volunteers and no lack of cushy assignments like chauffeuring party big-wigs and pointing VIPs toward the cocktails at invitation-only functions—but the organizers of the trash-sorting crews have had little trouble so far finding people willing to do it.
“It’s definitely something that we’ve advertised as a job where volunteers can get their hands dirty,” said Tonie Miyamoto, the interim coordinator of Colorado State University’s Live Green Team, an organization of staff, faculty, students and community members who organize sustainability and earth-friendly projects on campus and around Fort Collins. The Live Green Team is in charge of the DNC’s effort to divert 85 percent of the refuse discarded during the four-day event into the recycling bin. Miyamoto said the goal is to ensure that the remaining 15 percent headed for the landfill doesn’t include anything that could be reused.
And that means people like Mygdal are needed to physically check that the likes of Nancy Pelosi aren’t tossing their Diet Coke cans in the same trash bins as their Twix wrappers.
Using estimates of waste volume provided by the Democratic National Committee, Miyamoto estimated the need for volunteers to fill 520 trash-sorting shifts. As of Tuesday, 282 volunteers have signed on to fill 457 shifts; they include CSU faculty, students and community members like Mygdal.
“The DNC project is huge,” Miyamoto said, adding that she really doesn’t know what to expect in terms of trash volume. But she said having CSU up to its ankles in garbage is a “great opportunity” to show the world its commitment to sustainability, as well as to set the standard for “near-zero” waste-producing events in the future.
The Live Green Team will provide transportation from CSU on university-owned biodiesel busses. Volunteers will watch a video enroute instructing them on how to sort the waste; the work is made relatively easier in that there are only two piles to make—actual trash and single-stream recycling, meaning anything that can be reused, whether newspaper or glass, can go in one recycling pile. The volunteers will work at trash-sorting sites at either the Colorado Convention Center or the Pepsi Center. Neither facility will be fully air-conditioned. In fact, the Pepsi Center site will be inside a large tent. Miyamoto said there will be many large fans, music and plenty of (reusable) water bottles to keep the volunteers as comfortable as possible.
Once in place, the volunteers will be presented with one bag of garbage after another upended in front of them for hours on end. Once sorted, the refuse will be rebagged—in the same bag whenever possible—and Live Green Team members will weigh the outgoing garbage to measure its 85 percent recyclable goal.
It’s not surprising that in some circles this thankless effort has earned head-shaking chuckles and, in some cases, thinly-veiled derision, including by publications as far afield as the Wall Street Journal. The general thesis is that any environmental benefit derived from the trash-sorting efforts pales in comparison to the energy expended and pollution generated to transport some 300 people 140 miles round-trip for four days to do it, biodiesel or not.
Miyamoto sees it more in terms of global future benefit, not as a closed apples-to-apples equation.
“Teaching the people there how to do near-zero events is really valuable,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to put what we’re learning into use. That’s knowledge that all people can take away from this, and we will begin to see more and more near-zero waste (events). The education that is carried away will have a ripple-effect way down line.”
Mygdal, for one, doesn’t need convincing. All she said she needs is a chair to rest in from time to time.
“When you have raised a family and done all the housework and kept the house for as many years as I’ve done, I appreciate the fact that there’s a lot of cleanup in a huge convention like this,” she said. “Besides, it’s in all of our national interest to be recycling. It reinforces the concept of reusing. You don’t have to throw away everything.
“It’s good for the environment and it’s good for us.”
No, Mygdal isn’t the Democrats’ answer to Karl Rove hatching an intricate plot to swift-boat John McCain, and she’s not a Secret Service agent tasked with eavesdropping on cell phone conversations from a dark-windowed van parked in an obscure Denver alley.
She’s a 68-year-old Fort Collins artist—but a proud transplant from near Waco, Texas, she’d be quick to add—and for 15 hours over two days, she will be picking through mountains of garbage in an un-air-conditioned tent. Her day will start in Fort Collins with a 3 p.m. bus ride to Denver and end when the bus returns around 2:30 a.m.
It’s a job she volunteered to do, meaning she won’t get paid for returning home in the wee hours smelling like everything the Democrats throw away each night.
For Mygdal, though, the toil and the smell are meaningless in comparison to her sense of being able to contribute to two causes she feels passionately about: The DNC and recycling.
“I thought this would be an easy way to benefit the time that the Democrats are going to be in town and I could play my little part, and it’s the part that I thought a lot of people wouldn’t be too interested in doing,” she said. “I think sorting trash and that sort of stuff is not the most glamorous job in the world, but it’s a complete necessity.”
She may be right that it’s not glamorous—after all, the DNC has a roster of 22,000 volunteers and no lack of cushy assignments like chauffeuring party big-wigs and pointing VIPs toward the cocktails at invitation-only functions—but the organizers of the trash-sorting crews have had little trouble so far finding people willing to do it.
“It’s definitely something that we’ve advertised as a job where volunteers can get their hands dirty,” said Tonie Miyamoto, the interim coordinator of Colorado State University’s Live Green Team, an organization of staff, faculty, students and community members who organize sustainability and earth-friendly projects on campus and around Fort Collins. The Live Green Team is in charge of the DNC’s effort to divert 85 percent of the refuse discarded during the four-day event into the recycling bin. Miyamoto said the goal is to ensure that the remaining 15 percent headed for the landfill doesn’t include anything that could be reused.
And that means people like Mygdal are needed to physically check that the likes of Nancy Pelosi aren’t tossing their Diet Coke cans in the same trash bins as their Twix wrappers.
Using estimates of waste volume provided by the Democratic National Committee, Miyamoto estimated the need for volunteers to fill 520 trash-sorting shifts. As of Tuesday, 282 volunteers have signed on to fill 457 shifts; they include CSU faculty, students and community members like Mygdal.
“The DNC project is huge,” Miyamoto said, adding that she really doesn’t know what to expect in terms of trash volume. But she said having CSU up to its ankles in garbage is a “great opportunity” to show the world its commitment to sustainability, as well as to set the standard for “near-zero” waste-producing events in the future.
The Live Green Team will provide transportation from CSU on university-owned biodiesel busses. Volunteers will watch a video enroute instructing them on how to sort the waste; the work is made relatively easier in that there are only two piles to make—actual trash and single-stream recycling, meaning anything that can be reused, whether newspaper or glass, can go in one recycling pile. The volunteers will work at trash-sorting sites at either the Colorado Convention Center or the Pepsi Center. Neither facility will be fully air-conditioned. In fact, the Pepsi Center site will be inside a large tent. Miyamoto said there will be many large fans, music and plenty of (reusable) water bottles to keep the volunteers as comfortable as possible.
Once in place, the volunteers will be presented with one bag of garbage after another upended in front of them for hours on end. Once sorted, the refuse will be rebagged—in the same bag whenever possible—and Live Green Team members will weigh the outgoing garbage to measure its 85 percent recyclable goal.
It’s not surprising that in some circles this thankless effort has earned head-shaking chuckles and, in some cases, thinly-veiled derision, including by publications as far afield as the Wall Street Journal. The general thesis is that any environmental benefit derived from the trash-sorting efforts pales in comparison to the energy expended and pollution generated to transport some 300 people 140 miles round-trip for four days to do it, biodiesel or not.
Miyamoto sees it more in terms of global future benefit, not as a closed apples-to-apples equation.
“Teaching the people there how to do near-zero events is really valuable,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to put what we’re learning into use. That’s knowledge that all people can take away from this, and we will begin to see more and more near-zero waste (events). The education that is carried away will have a ripple-effect way down line.”
Mygdal, for one, doesn’t need convincing. All she said she needs is a chair to rest in from time to time.
“When you have raised a family and done all the housework and kept the house for as many years as I’ve done, I appreciate the fact that there’s a lot of cleanup in a huge convention like this,” she said. “Besides, it’s in all of our national interest to be recycling. It reinforces the concept of reusing. You don’t have to throw away everything.
“It’s good for the environment and it’s good for us.”
Want to volunteer?
» Friday is the last official day to volunteer to sort trash with CSU’s Live Green Team and as of Monday, 60 more volunteers were needed. Despite the deadline, the application form can still be filled out over the weekend at www.livegreen.colostate.edu.
» Going through garbage not your thing? Join the approximately 400 Larimer County residents who have volunteered to play other roles at the DNC, and apply at www.demconvention.com/volunteer. The Denver Host Committee is making assignments for specific duties. Although a spokesman said more than twice as many volunteers signed up than needed, he added that those interested can still apply in case volunteers drop out. The DNC will be from Aug. 25-28 in Denver. |
