Slime Report: Slate today posted this overview of the status of our nation's landfill waste disposal system. While there's nothing new here for those of us who study this stuff daily, if you're looking for a short, straightforward primer, this is a pretty good one.

Also it's been forever since I came across an article that refers to landfill leachate as "gloop." So please accept this item as my way of doing my part to keep everyone in the gloop loop.

Fred Who? Have you caught wind of the tallish tale making the rounds that the city of Austin, Texas, may rename its Solid Waste Services Department "The Fred Durst Society of the Humanities and Arts"? (For what it's worth, Durst is/was the lead yeller in a group called Limp Bizkit that was a big deal in the rock music world back around Y2K.)

This situation illustrates what can happen when you ask the public for suggestions on what to name something, especially in a place that has a high percentage of, um, nonconformists like Austin.

Here, just for the fun of it, is the city of Austin's latest tally of votes for the many resident-suggested new names for the city's waste department.

If I had a horse in this race, I think I'd put my money on either "Department of Trucks and Bins for Various Purposes" or "Austin Dept. of Are You Gonna Eat That?" Or maybe just suggest they leave it as is.

Pete Fehrenbach is managing editor of Waste & Recycling News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.