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.
Different councils have different rules. Our council doesn't collect glass, so we have to go to the bottle bank to deposit glass. It can be very confusing
DeleteWe 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.
That was very thoughtful of you. Nowadays they work so fast.
DeleteI 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.
Many of us are involved in waist management . . .
DeleteWe 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.
ReplyDeleteWe have to take batteries to a battery collection point. I'm sure lots of people don't bother.
DeleteFor 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.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting you say that Belgians would rather live on benefits - I thought that was just a British problem!
DeleteWe 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.
ReplyDeleteI deconstruct all cardboard boxes. They're easier to manage.
DeleteMy 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.
ReplyDeleteOur refuse collectors always look very pleased when we greet them. It's a miserable job and a bit of cheer goes a long way.
DeleteThey've got a dirty smelly job in all weather. Here they get a bonus at Xmas. I hope yours do too.
ReplyDeleteOur rubbish bins are a few kilometres away. We dump our bags whenever we want and they're collected Almost daily. We get good service here.
Daily collection sounds wonderful!
DeleteYou're right, we should definitely appreciate bin men more than we do.
ReplyDeleteWe have non-recyclable household waste and kitchen waste collected every week, recyclable stuff like plastic and metal packing, Etc. every two weeks and paper and carton once a month. We even have an app to remind you to put out the correct bins on the correct day! xxx
We have put reminders on our 'phones, otherwise we'd be at sixes and sevens every week.
DeleteThis is a very nice tribute to our hard-working refuse collectors. We have rubbish and recycling (different trucks) collected on two days, Mondays and Thursdays, yard debris is collected on Wednesdays. I am very grateful for what they do for us and they always seem to have a friendly wave if we have to drive around them on our way in or out of the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteYour system sounds very efficient, Denise.
DeleteYes, goodness knows we owe our bin men a lot.
ReplyDeleteOur non-recyclable collection is fortnightly, but our recyclables and food waste get collected weekly. Supposedly that's meant to encourage us to recycle more, but I suspect it just encourages people to throw non-recyclable stuff in the recycling bags. (And does anything really get recycled? One wonders. I am very skeptical.)
I agree, Steve. I'm quite sceptical, too.
DeleteWe have 3 bins if you live in a house. Plastic, glass and non- recyclables. But, if you live in an apartment like me, we only have the one big trash can that the trashmen empty twice a week.
ReplyDeleteSo, do the trashmen have to sort through the rubbish from the apartments? That sounds like a lot more work.
Deletewe were like librarian, they picked up our recycle in a blue bin and green one was kitchen. they stopped the recycle because to many people were placing greasy pizza boxes, and things that were not washed and rinsed and that would ruin the load of recyels and the city would not get paid for it... now the planet suffers.... so do our garbage guys, I often think of the people who do the dirtiest and MOST NEEDED of services get the lowest pay and have the worst working conditions, even in health care. wipe butts for a living or pick up stinky garbage, and you will be among the very poor
ReplyDeleteYet these are the people we need most of all. It's a very unfair world.
DeleteI appreciate all the work it takes to have our trash removed.
ReplyDelete😊
DeleteWe are transitioning to four bins here now, although it doesn't really affect me. I think it is general rubbish, glass, mixed recycling and garden and food waste. We are certainly in big strife without people to collect our rubbish.
ReplyDeleteRefuse collection is essential.
DeleteI agree with you . . . we should appreciate our bin men more than we do.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I certainly appreciate the ones who empty and clear my bins :)
All the best Jan
Likewise! 😊
DeleteHere everything still goes in one bin. There used to be 2 guys on a truck but these days the truck picks up the bins and dumps them so one driver and he never has to get out of the truck
ReplyDeleteAutomation can be very helpful.
DeleteWe live outside the city limits so we have no trash [rubbish] or recycling pickups at all.
ReplyDeleteWe take our own garbage and recyclables to the nearest center for disposal.
That has to be a fairly regular trip, I suppose.
DeleteDuring the pandemic, our recycling items weren't picked up for months because of a lack of employees. I was grateful when more people signed on for the job, which is certainly a dirty, difficult one. The recycling trucks can pick up the recycling bin, but when the kitchen trash truck comes around, the men (have never seen any women) have to pick up the bins and sometimes things spill out on them. When we put out yard waste, we set it at the curb -- no bin. Inevitably, some of it is left behind.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Very windy days can be difficult when the recycling bags go out . . .
DeleteI remember the days (in Australia at least) when back yards were larger and held an incinerator as well as a compost heap, or in my yard, a compost "hole" where things were tossed that would rot down and soil from the dig would be scooped over until the hole was filled. A tree or bush would be planted and a new hole dug. Anything else like newspapers, cardboard etc was burned once a week in the incinerator. The only things in the collection bin were tin cans from foods or bottles from various sauces and oils.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like quite a sensible solution, especially the compost holes.
DeleteThey work so hard, especially when they've been off for a holiday. Double duty on the next day.
ReplyDeleteIt takes a while to get back to the routine after a bank holiday.
ReplyDeleteWe really should appreciate them more! Can you imagine what our towns and cities would become without this essential service?
ReplyDeleteWe see what they quickly become when the bin men go on strike!
DeleteYour process is machine-assisted to some degree? In the colonies we make them break their backs. 😔
ReplyDeleteQuite right, too!
DeleteTwo weeks. My goodness, doesnt it pile up then?
ReplyDeleteHere it is weekly. We live far out in the country on a one-lane, narrow gravel road. But the trash truck comes early every Monday, a big lumbering truck with one man to do all the work on a route that must have 200 hundred houses. He drives, stops, picks up cans, bags, barrels, empties into the truck, compresses the mess, then back in the truck to the next stop. It has to be exhausting. And I bet he doesnt get paid near enough.
That sounds very taxing - and I bet you're right, that he isn#tpaid enough.
DeleteI agree that it’s not the best of jobs but when I think back to my childhood and how the bin men used to carry the very heavy bins on their shoulders, I shudder to think how they must’ve felt at the end of their shift!
ReplyDeleteWe are lucky here as we seem to have a well organised and consistent crew…that is much appreciated.
Yes, I remember those days. What hard work that was.
ReplyDeleteOur garbage is picked up once a week, at the same time as our recycling. Years ago, our garbage was picked up twice weekly. Guessing we were fortunate!
ReplyDeleteNow that we are our own bin-men we are even more devoted to composting (including paper and card) and sorting the rest into things that can go into recycling bins. We have to pay for each actual RUBBISH bag we take to the refuse station so Im contemplating investing in a compactor bin.
ReplyDeleteLike you, we have two bins emptied on alternative weeks, although we don't have a bin for garden waste. That, either goes on our compost or we take to the landfill for them to recycle. I'm very grateful for our bin men and the efficient service they provide.
ReplyDelete