Garbage Day

How lucky we are to have our garbage regularly collected.  And yet—do I have complaints?  Of course.  Complaints are what I do.

I have no complaints about the collection, but honestly, why can’t people follow the very simple rules of garbage collection.  Not that I belong to the garbage police, but sometimes I wish I did.

Most days I walk around the neighborhood.  Thursdays are especially pungent because that’s our day.  We’ve been issued two containers.  One is for garbage, the other is for recycling.  Why can’t people get this straight?

The rules for recycling are very clear.  No plastic is allowed.  No styrofoam.  And yet, there both are, sticking out of the recycling bins.  Can I give them a ticket?  Well, no.  Should I leave a note?  No, again.  I don’t want to be shot during a garbage-rage incident.

Most grocery stores have places to recycle plastic.  Styrofoam I’ll grant you is a bigger problem. But our city has a recycling center opened one day a week for styrofoam and electronic goods.  Only laziness stops us.  But I wonder what happens when the recycling trucks dump their goods with all these products that can’t be recycled?  Being lazy myself, I shall not investigate further but move on to another topic, re garbage cans.

I. E., placement of the cans, a very serious issue.  Gone are the days when the garbage collector got out of his or her truck and dumped the cans him/herself.  Today it’s done by a pincer-like affair that lifts the cans and dumps them in the truck.  Instructions for placing the cans are quite simple.  Face them forward, leave enough space between them for the truck do it its work.

Why then do people place them sideways, diagonally, every which way when it is so easy, after dragging them out front, to just line them up?

Speaking about dragging them out front, people here have driveways.  Put the cans at the edge of the driveway please!  Why are you putting them in the streets?  But every Thursday, if/when I take out my car, I go through an obstacle course of dodging garbage cans.

Garbage collection is such a miracle of civilized society.  And civilized society is governed by rules to make life better for each and every one of us.  So, damn it, get your damn cans off the road.

Okay, I think I’m through now.


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Novels That May Never Be Finished: Part 2