Waste is unloaded and compacted at the Knott Landfill (Bulletin file)

Dear valued garbage producer in Deschutes County. We have an announcement.

The county is running out of places to put your garbage.

Please prepare.

Continue putting your garbage in your garbage can, for now. Keep taking it to the curb on your appointed day or using whatever approved and legal disposal method you currently use, for now.

You can do it for about six more years. And then it will not get picked up and just sit there on the curb.

No, not really.

But, yes, there is an estimated 2031 deadline when the way we do garbage in Deschutes County must change.

You may be killing it with recycling. You may be the mostest with composting. You may tote your reusable totes to the grocery store and try your best to reuse all the packaging that the needed stuff and the wanted stuff comes in.

The numbers are not in our favor. The county produces about 3,000 pounds per person of solid waste a year. Knott Landfill is only so big. It’s estimated to need a replacement by 2031. It will cost millions.

No amount of special, grown-up juice makes that go away.

The dedicated team at Deschutes County government has been trying to give this tale a happy ending. The county produced a very good storyboard of the search for a new landfill. It had a lamentable plot twist. The county and the property owner for the chosen replacement site east of Bend could not reach a deal.

And so now the garbage keeps coming, the clock keeps ticking and there is no new site.

Step up the recycling, the composting, the reusing. Suppress mainlining the comforting clicks on the shopping cart. Scientists and theologians agree every such click shrinks the size of your soul.

No, not really.

So buy, buy, buy and fill up the landfill. The only people to question it will be our ancestors.

The next meeting of the county’s committee tasked with this task is on Tuesday. More information here: tinyurl.com/Deschutesdump.