Black bin day
We have two bins, a brown one for garden waste, and a black bin for household, non-recyclable rubbish. Each is emptied fortnightly, though that may change. The trend to fewer collections is increasing. This week Tuesday is black bin day. Kitchen waste is collected every week.
It’s a
relief when the rubbish leaves the house – that makes it sound as though it travels
out under its own speed – if only!
For perhaps one or two days we can relax before the inevitable build-up resumes.
Refuse collectors have a smelly, unpleasant job, even with machines that lift the bins to empty them. Manoeuvring huge bin lorries along narrow streets, between badly-parked cars, or along rutted lanes is not a task for the faint-hearted. Out in all weathers, boiling in summer, wet and cold in winter, the men work week in, week out. I’ve never noticed any women doing the job, but I’m sure there must be some. (On looking it up, I found that women are increasingly involved in ’waste management,’ though still under-represented.)
We certainly notice if the dustmen go on strike. Over-filled bags split and deposit their contents on pavements. Rats are attracted, though it’s foxes that spread wrappers and containers far and wide.
The clanking, clanging progress along the road and the beeping of a reversing lorry all welcome the day. The men work efficiently and quickly, ferrying the bins from kerb-side to dust cart, and returning them, empty, to their starting point.
We should appreciate our bin men more than we do. Life would be far less comfortable without their service.
Without the bin men (and women), we'd well and truly drown in our own rubbish. Of course one can try and buy things that have less packaging, but plastic, cardboard, glass and metal probably make up more weight in an average weekly food shopping than the actual food stuff.
ReplyDeleteHere, we have five different bins: brown for organic (kitchen) waste, blue for glass, green for paper and cardboard, yellow for plastic and black for anything that doesn't fit into either of the four other categories. It is a puzzling system when you're not familiar with it, and the family in the attic flat above mine haven't yet mastered the art of correct rubbish sorting. They fled from a different country and came to live here a couple of years ago.
When it's just me during the week, there isn't enough rubbish to make it worthwile taking it downstairs to the bins. But when O.K. is here for the weekend and I make nearly all our meals at home, most of it from scratch, the kitchen bin fills up very quickly.
We have a hardworking bin lady working alongside the men.
ReplyDeleteIn the old days I just to have a tray of orange squash and cold water ready for them, now they keep on trucking without stopping.
I salute them.
ReplyDeleteMany thousands of women are involved in ’waste management’ as they process soiled nappies. I myself am involved in "waist management" through administering weight loss reduction injections.
We have bins for kitchen waste + smaller burnable stuff outside the block of flats where I live, and those get emptied on Mondays. About 10 min walk away there is a recycling station for paper, cardboard, plastic wrapping material, tins, glass bottles and batteries. I usually try to go there on Friday afternoons, when I know those containers are usually "fairly" tidy and recently emptied... My impression too is that it's usually men doing that job. (Can't recall ever having noticed a woman among them, but on the other hand I rarely see them but from a distance and they're wearing overalls.) No doubt it's still a heavy job even if parts of it is done mechanically these days.
ReplyDeleteFor the moment everything is working well with the garbage, at least in our area, but strikes we have quite often. You are right it's a very hard work and for this work suddenly immigrants are welcomed. A Belgian would rather do nothing and live from benefit. Here of course they have enormous trucks and no bins but big containers. Also separated materials. I think they come once a week.
ReplyDeleteWe have large recycling containers on each block including a single stream one, very handy. The regular garbage dumpster is in the same enclosure. The same company hauls garbage and recycling, one man all alone operating the truck. They're out about 4 am. I've seen them when I couldn't sleep. I bless them and try to cooperate, flattening and tying cardboard etc. But I'm bothered by the amount of garbage I manage to create in a one person household.
ReplyDeleteMy husband makes a point of going out to hand our one fair size plastic bag of waste onto the truck bucket. Our driver often jumps out and they have a 2 minute chat. The man says Dick is to only one to speak to him out of every week of work. We appreciate what this job entails. And like doctors here, this is a commercial business, so no strikes emanate unless you would live in a large city like New York.
ReplyDelete