Ah my. Our city is starting a pilot program and our neighborhood got made the ones who get to do it. Probably because there is not one member of the city council who lives here.
There will no longer be trash trucks for us. Nope, zip, gone. We’re all such perfect recyclers that we will have recycling and we will have composting and that’s that.
A little compost bucket got dropped off by the front door a few days ago, with a box of biodegradeable liner bags inside. You had to break the lid of the thing to get it to stay upright while trying to put stuff in it, like when peeling a mango with two hands with the bucket needing two more hands to hold it steady and open for the peels . Meat scraps! Those go in too. The bags are to go in the bins that were formerly for yard clippings only and the bucket is intended to stay in our kitchens whether we want them to or not, unless we want squirrels raiding them by day and rats and raccoons by night. (Full or empty, they’re going to smell like food to them.) And no, there are no charcoal filters. (Paging Suburban Correspondent.)
I have an occasional gardener here doing some of the outdoor stuff I with my sun sensitivity absolutely can’t. Mows the lawn, that sort of thing. When he does come, it’s the day before pickup, and now he’s supposed to deal with his work bin having week-old chicken bones in it and the like (says the woman who made chicken broth tonight).
If we want details on the program, do we get a written-out description on the city’s website?
No, we get a video to listen to.
*crickets*
Nope, can’t hear those either. I mean, come on, guys, how hard is it to type out the (insert aggrieved word of your choice here) thing?
And! They want the participants to fill in a survey, and if you do they will give you a $5 gift certificate to…wait for it…Peet’s coffee.
Now, I’m told Peet’s makes great coffee. But we’re Mormons.
The real kicker and the biggest reason this all bugs me in the first place is that anything that really is trash is to be sealed up in a bag and put out in the recycling bin. Which is already way more than full every week, because, y’know, we’re such great recyclers and all; I emailed the city and outlined just exactly what goes in the trash at our house since my colectomy and asked if they really wanted to risk–I mean, have they seen their trucks in action?!–contaminating everything with–that.
So they gave me a second recycling bin to help with the volume issue.
Would the Health Department seriously be okay with this? What this is really about is the city strong-arming the garbage workers’ union they’ve been fighting with.
Tomorrow’s the first day.
One year.
Kicking and screaming all the way.
(And on a more cheerful note, I saw a peregrine falcon hovering at the top of the trees that were cut back from the road as I carpooled and Richard drove to pick up Michelle this evening, and on the way back I saw it again!)