Garbage Day?

It's early Monday morning and we've just put out the trash. It was a lot of trash, like 15 bags worth of it. The reason there is so much rubbish for just 3 residents is because of our councils recycling policy. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for recycling, but not when it is so poorly organised.

Our council however has decided that instead of regular trash collections every week, we are going to have an alternating system instead. Regular trash will be collected every other week, and in the gap weeks, recyclable waste will be collected. Which would be great, only they haven't exactly publicised which week is which. And if you put the bags out on the wrong week, not only do they not get collected but you can get fined for "littering". Which is a scheme dreamed up by some money grabbing schmuck in County Hall (which is just across the road, if I had a rocket launcher I could shoot the place from my window!) no doubt.

We don't know whether today is regular trash day or not, but with 15 bags of the stuff sat out in our tiny back garden smelling, we can't afford to miss another collection day by being over cautious again. For recycling we have been provided with a single "green box", which is exactly what it sounds like, a green plastic tub that we are suppossed to put recyclables in and sit outside our front door.

The problem with these is that they are VERY useful for things other than recycling, in particular shopping as a pair of these tubs fits nicely into a shopping trolley, and thus saves a lot of time and bother at the checkouts with packing goods into carrier bags. I've seen them used in this fashion several times, and so the tubs once the garbage truck has emptied them and left them sat outside the house, are very likely to get stolen. And since they are property of the council, and have to be turned over on demand, if you don't have the one you were issued with, you get another fine! A classic case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.