A New Way to Dump the Trash

I apologize for not having a picture of this thing, but we got a new trash can this week. Actually it's a huge (to us) dumpster on wheels. Our waste management company dropped one at every home in the village yesterday with instructions on how to place them at the curb on Trash Day, which is Wednesday around here. The dumpster has to be placed just so, three feet away from trees, other cans, or posts, in order for a robot arm operated by the truck driver to pick it up, tip it and place it back on the ground. Thus it requires only one operator (the driver) to pick up the trash, allowing the company to be more profitable. (Translation: there goes another job eliminated in the recession.)

The amazing thing is that every home received a 95-gallon dumpster. It is larger than our 65-gallon recycle dumpster by far. Ever since single-stream recycling came to our village we have had, at most, one kraft grocery sack of trash a week that wouldn't even take up much room in our old 30-gallon can. (All of our vegetable garbage and egg shells go into the compost heap...) Why we need a receptacle three times larger, especially with recycling taking most of the cardboard, paper, metal, plastic and glass, is a mystery. Even if we had a family of 6, we wouldn't fill the thing more often than every three weeks! Usually we put the recycle can out only every other week, and it's never full, either. We solved the can congestion at the back of the house problem by going together with Barb, our driveway-sharing neighbor. We'll both use her trash can, and our recycling can. We stored the extras under her carport, and we'll probably use them to store summer lawn furniture cushions and other outdoor gear this winter. (Each household pays almost $20 a month for these lovely receptacles and the once a week pickup.)

So far no special dumpster for the lawn waste (grass, leaves, small limbs) pickup. We can still use a plain waste can or paper bags (no plastic!) for those. That truck still has a crew of three--two riders and a driver. At least for now.....

On a planet that needs less consumption and less trash, it seems a shame that we now have these plastic behemoths lining the streets each week, begging people to throw out more stuff they didn't need in the first place! OK, end of rant; I'm climbing off the soap box now. Although I wonder where these things were made...if we imported them, there's some more American jobs headed for the landfill.