Today we made the long, long overdue trip to the SMaRT Station to get rid of a bunch of stuff. We’ve been dutifully collecting old light bulbs and batteries rather than tossing them in the trash, and last month I went through a bunch of electronic junk and filled a box with cables, peripherals, and even two laptops (whose hard drives I completely wiped) to get rid of.
Dumping the stuff turned out to be trivial: The woman working the public disposal site pointed us at the correct bins, and we chucked it all. The electronics bin had an amusing sign, “No scavenging”. Considering the station is near Weird Stuff and right in Silicon Valley, I imagine plenty of people come by to collect old electronics for free. I was amused at some of the ancient crap people had chucked (wow, people are still getting rid of ancient computer tape drives in 2010), but I certainly didn’t want to scavenge any of it!
Debbi noticed that they also accept old paint cans there, and since I have a whole bunch of old paint cans in the garage – inherited from the previous owner – almost none of which are any good anymore, I’m sure (or even relevant, since the exterior has since been painted in new colors), I should go through them and take them in for disposal, too.
Afterwards we walked a little on the nearby San Francisco Bay Trail, hoping to spot the extension they just finished building behind Moffett Field, but we weren’t close enough to see it, and it was too cold and windy to walk that far given how we were dressed. However, I was disappointed to see that the trail at that point isn’t paved, which means no biking on it for me with my road bike. Too bad.
We discovered several wonderful new smells, some at the station and some at the salt ponds by the bay trail. Whee! All that wind is good for something after all.