Sometimes, it’s the fall lines, the fairways, the french fries. The, “Oh, my God honey! Have you seen the view?” Sometimes, it’s the ribbon-cutting, shovel-digging yodel of something new. The paycheque. The sweaty nightlife. The world’s tallest dinosaur. Sometimes, it’s the grand gestures for why we fall in love, the monumental landscapes of what makes a good, or even great, place to be. Yet, sometimes, it’s the tiny gestures, how we swoom from a whisper. How we ramble down a road on hot day, a truck full of discarded drywall. A trunk full of last week’s garbage. The way we pull up to a booth at the dump, and this woman with a smile says, “How you doing today? Whatya got there? How ‘bout a treat for your dog? All right then, (she chuckles) you have a good one…”

Perhaps, it’s the tiny things that make us fall in love.

It’s 8:30 a.m. and the Kimberley Transfer Station has just opened. Two cars wait at the gate. It’s no regular day: BC’s on fire.  Liane Beattie (Beatts) has just discovered that her mom’s retirement home is being evacuated. She’s rattled as she’s scheduled to work the scale booth all day. She recognizes the car pulling up. “How you doing today Dave?” she says. “Going shopping? Atta boy…” In between cars, she talks to her mom. “It’s gonna be OK Mom. Don’t you worry. I’ll find a way up there.”

Beatts is part of the all-women crew employed by Southeast Disposal, contracted by RDEK, to operate the Kimberley Transfer Station (aka The Dump). They have 26 years of  waste management experience. This is Beatts’ and Joanie Emery’s fourth year, and Karen Nordby’s eighteenth. They recognize people by their license plates and plant flowers and shrubs from refuse we’ve thrown away. They collect empties to buy dog treats and go to work early to tidy up. They take their job seriously. “No one has a dump quite like this,” Beatts says proudly. “People don’t just come here to throw away their garbage. They feel welcome. We’re like psychologists. We hear it all. You should see the Christmas gifts we get: chocolate, beer, wine. It’s how you treat people. It’s about kindness.”

Beatts says she learns more about garbage every day. “Sometimes, I wake up in my sleep, dreaming about this stuff.”

These women take pride in their work. It’s a tidy dump, if there’s such a thing. “Our work ethic stems from Karen,” Beatts says. “Things changed when she started here. We’re good ol’ hard workers. See these hands? They’re old man hands. They haven’t changed since I was in grade five.”

And then there’s the flowers and shrubs planted near refuse bins. “I kept watching people throwing away green waste,” Beatts says, “Roots balls. Bulbs. Withered shrubs. I’ve got a horticultural background, so in my head I’m going, that’s a $35 plant. I’d pull it out of the waste pile, stick it in the dirt, and put a hose on it. The next thing I knew, people would come in and say, ‘I’ve got this lovely iris. Do you want it?’”

Later that afternoon, Will Irvin pulls up with four hanging baskets. “Cheryl’s getting tired of constantly watering them in this heat,” he says. “You guys want ‘em?”

This is a great leap from the dump of old days, a scraggy patch of land--with the best view in town--on the fertilizer plant road. Rugged. Raw. Wide open. Oily crows lurked in trees. The feral outlaws feasted on garbage. We’d dodge bear and deer rooting through trash. We’d pick through rotting rubbage, haphazardly tossed out car windows, to find a dresser to take home.

All this changed in 2000, a year after the RDEK assumed control and recognized we can’t keep cramming the earth with things we throw away. They made changes: Wood was separated from metal and garden waste. They introduced recycle bins for paper/cardboard, tin/aluminum cans, and household plastics. They created separate areas for auto batteries, propane tanks, appliances, and tires. Yard and garden waste were chipped and mixed with topsoil then spread onto decommissioned landfills. And in 2004, perhaps the most popular feature was opened, where every day feels like a garage sale: The Kimberley Reuse Centre (aka The Marysville Macy’s, The Free Store, The New & Used, The Kimberley Walmart), where customers drop off household items, such as chairs, furniture, books, toys, pictures, and kitchen accessories. Sometimes, things don’t make it out of a truck before they’re claimed.

“Is the sink any good for reuse?” Beatts asks a customer. “Nope? Ok, Thanks. In the bin then.” There’s strict guidelines as to what can go in the reuse. Everything has to be in working order, and items such as clothing are forbidden. As well, they regulate how often people can use the reuse, to avoid what some call the vultures, people who scavenge the reuse for items to resell at markets and on social media sites. “The intention of the reuse is for people to take items they’ll use personally,“ Beatts says. To help prohibit the commercial re-sale of goods, customers are restricted to accessing the reuse once every 2nd day.

Residents recount their favourite reuse finds: a box of nerf guns (“Best day ever to be an eight-year-old boy,” a dad writes); a pristine fox pelt a young woman hung on her living room wall, only to discover when she came home from work, a massacre of fur all over the house, her guilty cat hiding under a bed; a mother who furnished her son’s first apartment.  

People reflect on the significance of the reuse:  “When I need something, I go there, and, low and behold, there’s the exact thing I had in mind is waiting for me,” Jessica Swanson writes.

“A visit to the reuse is like date night,” Hogie says.

“My brother and I have been dropping stuff off at the reuse non-stop since Mom passed away,” Ashlin Tipper says. “It’s such a relieving feeling that each time we return, her stuff has been scooped up, or people are getting things out of the truck before we’ve even unloaded. Feels good that people are so psyched on Mom's stuff and things are going to a new home. The Koots rule.”

It’s just past 5 p.m. and Beatts’ shift is coming to an end, the familiar thunk of the last car over the cattle guard. It’s been a long day, the sun cloaked behind a smoky sky. She recognizes the driver, reaches into a plastic bucket of dog treats, and drops one into a soup ladle taped to a fishing pole. When the car stops at the booth, she leans toward the back window, delivers a treat, and smiles. “I miss seein’ ya walking in the morning,” she says to the fellow. They talk about the evacuation alert. “I had to bring mom to my place,” she tells him. “Lemme know if you guys need anything.” Beatts chuckles and shakes her head. “Well, all right then, whatya got today?”