Recently we had to throw out a garbage can. You ever try to throw out a garbage can? It was all twisted and cracked, had a big, spirally lip of the top hanging off it like an apple peel at one of those pie-baking contests where it comes off in one strip. The bottom was cracked and broken, at least two major holes. Week after week, they kept leaving it there, as if some other city garbage truck had come by and emptied just that one can. Or maybe they thought they were admitting some culpability in throwing out the can that they obviously destroyed. They like to toss the empties pell mell, you see. Anyway, week after week. Finally, I gave up. Started using it again. Brought it to the curb full of garbage. Next morning, it was gone.
Yer telling me I’m gonna have to bribe my garbagemen when I move to NYC in September?
Fuck that. I’ll start filling garbage bags full of human waste and stuffing them among the neighbour’s trash if that happens.
Here in S. Georgia state prisoners collect garbage. I don’t think the unions in NY would go for that though.
I recycle. I was recycling paper, and metal years before the city told me I had to. Then the city provided me a nice plastic container to put my recyclables in for pickup. I used that container for a few years until the container began to overflow, and then I purchased 4 plastic trashcans and wrote in big letters, PLASTIC, PAPER, GLASS and METAL on them. I put them on the curb for the trash men to pick up, they left them. Thinking that I miscalculated the correct pickup day, I returned my new recycling containers to their appropriate home until the next recycling day.
Next recycling day, I put the clearly marked containers on the curb and once again, they were ignored. I ran to catch up with the trash man and asked why he did not pick up my recyclables. He told me they were not in the container that the city had provided, and he was not going to pick them up. I can not repeat what I said to the trash man that day. I returned home and dumped all of my recyclables in the trashcan. For the next 6 months, I recycled nothing, and I felt guilty the whole time. Now I recycle, but every time I take my city issued container to the curb, I think about the day that the trash man refused my refuse; I have no respect for him. I have a tip for my trash man, there are some cows on the south side of town, go push one, maybe they will tip over.
We have the same system… and every Tuesday morning at 6:15 I’m awakened by the three year old screaming at the top of her little lungs “MOMMY! GARBAGE MONSTER!! YOU’RE MISSING IT!!!” Variations on this siren song continue until the truck has finished the cul-de-sac and is out of view. Then she comes to my bedside to report breathlessly on what she’s seen. The best part is that she demonstrates each step of the process- picture the “I’m A Little Teapot” routine but with a garbage theme.
The object, my dear fellow, is to find some breach of unwritten garbage code so that the trash guy can leave your trash behind. Unapproved containers? That is just crazy talk. Don’t make it so easy for them. You got off easy, by the way. Failing to recycle recyclables is also a violation. Now that you have been initiated, it’s time to play by the major league rules.
In all fairness to the garbage men, these small idiosyncrasies that each of us complains about; multiple unapproved containers, improper positioning of containers, improper sorting of refuse, are a trivial to us, but i can imagine would be quite overwhelming if our fair refuse collectors had to walk 10’ extra to get to each of the hundreds of receptacles, or they had to empty 4 unapproved containers instead of one at each house.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that we tip garbage men, or that they are not completely anal about things at times, but simply that I can understand how quickly one little idiosyncrasy at each house could greatly increase the amount of energy they expend in one day’s work.
[pssst…everyone look busy, there one of them right there ^!!!]