Trash it

For those who open this blog each time hoping to learn what we do with our garbage, this entry is for you.  Unlike in Oakland, where garbage is collected once a week, collection here happens every day except Sunday.  Also unlike home, where we put our garbage out the night before so it is ready when the truck goes by in the morning, here you cannot leave your garbage out.  Stray dogs and other critters would attack the garbage and the neighbors would complain.  Instead, each morning a lucky member of the household gets to take the garbage out and throw it in the truck as it drives by.

The truck passes our house between 6:30 and 6:45 a.m.  We know it is passing because one of the workers bangs a metal pipe against the truck along its route.  It sounds like somebody on speed playing a cowbell into a microphone in the room next to you.  There are three or four five-second bursts of noise before the truck reaches our house, and then one or two more after it passes.  In theory, we could track the clanging to know where the truck is, but that rarely works.  By the time the clanging wakes us up,  it is hard to tell precisely where the noise is coming from.  As a result, it usually takes at least two trips to the street to see if the truck is there yet.  More than once I have had to chase it down after it drove by.  The transition from being fast asleep in bed to sprinting after the truck with a hand full of garbage bags, which can happen in less than thirty seconds, is rough.

Early morning garbage run

I do not mean to complain.  It is convenient to have garbage pick-up every day.  Otherwise the garbage would get smelly and unmanageable in this heat, and it would attract pests.  One night I saw an opossum rooting through a bag of garbage we left in the yard outside our back door.  Nor do we mind that the truck passes our house so early.  That is when we have to wake up anyway on Monday through Friday, although it would be nice if they took Saturdays off.  I just find it amusing to imagine the response at home if this system were to be introduced there.  We would never tolerate six days a week of garbage trucks driving around the city before 7:00 a.m. making a racket.  Why do they stand for it here?

The daily challenge of intercepting the garbage truck, combined with an interest in how cities handle solid waste and recyclables, tempt me to ask if I can ride with the garbage truck one day.  Dumps always are fascinating (visit one before you disagree), and I would like to know what happens to the recyclables.  Our landlords and other people have told us there is no need to separate the garbage, but I have seen the garbage men pulling cans, bottles, and newspapers from the rest of the trash.  I read somewhere that they earn extra income by selling the recyclables.  We separate our garbage to make it easier on them.  Maybe that will make the difference in whether they let me ride along one day.   --Harrison