Waste Not, Want Not

Several years ago my hub and I made a trip to Greece. Trying to read the road signs was disturbing, since it was All Greek to us. (LOL) But what was really disturbing was the heaps of trash on the sides of the roads.

When we moved back to the US in 2006, we noticed that peculiar similarity with Greece out here where we live. Some families set their overflowing garbage in containers a week in advance of the pick up! If the weather does not scatter it, then the varmints do.

Garbage pick up is often a puzzle, too, since we never receive any communication or information about when the trash will be collected. And what can you actually discard? I have seen everything from bedroom furniture to lawnmowers next to the white see-through garbage bags. Our son who lives in a BIG city even had auto tires collected from his yard last week. And once when he was replacing his bathroom toilets, a used toilet pot disappeared before he could get it from the stoop to the street.

This "trash talk" all leads to some really great news for us. For several years now, we have been saddled with garbage container "duty" at the apartment in The Netherlands. When my in-laws were still alive, they did their best to roll the large metal container from the garbage shed to and from the front curb in front of the apartment complex. The duty was "only" two weeks per year (two times each week), but once they could no longer do that shoving and pulling, someone else had to do it.

For the last three years since they left the apartment, the kind neighbors have pitched in to take over the duties. Not only for my in-laws, but for other apartment dwellers who just could not manage that task anymore.

Finally, Finally, the trash problem is solved!!!! No more pushing metal monstrosities onto the main thoroughfare before 7:00 am on Mondays and Thursdays!

Now it is mandatory that everyone use a trash pass card to open an underground trash receptacle across the street from the apartment. That is for normal trash. Plastic will now be collected every other Wednesday in bags set next to the garbage receptacle. Glass and paper will be collected from bags/heaps/boxes by the back fence every other week. Calendars have been provided, plus there is always the website on the Internet.

Guess I will have to find out what to do with my table scraps/veggie scraps, since there is no compost heap nearby. And the apartment we stay in has no garden!

At least we will not have to spend $10 on gas to drive to the recycling plants like we do here in Louisiana.

But will the streets be full of trash, like Greece and the US?

Will let you know later.