It then changed to once a week on Fridays....with no prior notice.
Religiously every Thursday night I would put my garbage out in order to meet the Friday pickup.
They usually pass around 4.30am - 5.00am, when I'm already up, and it's pretty cool to hear them shouting to the driver "Gone clear!" or "Move up!!" or "Wait, Wait,Wait!!" or "Hold up!" or "Squash!"
Two hard bangs on the side of the truck, followed by a loud "Drive!" usually signals a speedy departure from the neighbourhood.
Can you imagine my horror, yes horror, when one Thursday at 4.30am I heard the truck coming up the street...what on earth was going on? Obviously my garbage was not put out to be picked up, it was Thursday, not Friday.
I certainly wasn't running outside to sprint behind the truck with bags of garbage. I made a mental note for the following week.
Yup, along they came the next week on Thursday at 4.30am again...... no notice of the change in schedule....who does this?
I know many will wonder why I just don't put my garbage out in a bin like everyone else. I keep my bin under the outside stairway. I hate smelly garbage outside an entrance way.
Not only for that reason, but also because the garbage collectors are "famous" for pelting (throwing) the bins back on to the property whereby causing some damage.
I remember my mum "cussing" them out many years ago, when the bin came crashing back into our wall, which necessitated some repairs after many apologies from the depot.
Therefore, the night before collection, I gather all frozen entrails and garbage together in a large trash bag and place it outside the front wall for collection.
No "cussing" for me, and my entrance smells like a rose garden......I like it that way.
I guess my garbage pickup is on Thursdays now!!
(until it changes yet again)
Garbage collection seems to be one of those things that varies almost from village to village in the world. Here in NZ in the country we have to take our garbage in sacks to the road (we live a kilometre up a private drive) before 0800 because if we take it the night before the sacks may be ripped open by stray animals. On Lewis we have wheely bins which are automatically emptied by the wagons (the men put them on the wagon's lifter). When I was in Perth Western Australia years ago the bin had to be placed very exactly at the roadside and the wagon was manned by one person and the whole operation was automated.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, so no one comes along and "takes" the lovely wheely bins for their own purposes? We have some folks here that tend to like your bin more than you do. You go to put your garbage out, and your bin is gone.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, there are stray cats that do put a rip in the bag foraging for scraps, but the tiny mess created is not a bother.
I like the idea of the automated wheely bins.
Some folks have the underground bins, but I like to wash my bin out very often, so not sure how that would work for me.
Like GB we have wheelie bins but there are three of them - one for rubbish rubbish; one for glass, metal, plastic (but only very specific types) and cardboard / paper (no window envelopes please...); and one for garden rubbish (but no woody stems or soil allowed! I sometimes wonder what is left?). And anything compostable goes in the garden compost bin.
ReplyDeleteAll three bins are collected once a fortnight on a guess-the-day basis. At the moment they are Mondays - or Tuesdays. To quote you -(until it changes yet again).
Our recycling items here are taken to the plants or the supermarkets..we don't have the garbage sorting policy in place yet. I recycle my plastics and glass. Garden debris is regenerated as mulch.
ReplyDeleteYou made me laugh when you said no window envelopes are allowed with the paper garbage....just for the small piece of plastic?? Crazy.
I also liked your "guess-the-day- basis, but oh so true.
What can we do, but abide as best as we can.