Evidently everything in life is now a feminist/patriarchy
issue that we must struggle with and angst over to be sure we are doing it
correctly. The latest seems to be who
takes out the trash. The NYT has an
article on the fact that even though there is “equality” now because ….? ….Men
still take out the trash.
 |
| EEEEEW!!!! |
I haven’t read the article, but it seems so twee.
Based on the life experiences of the millennials in New York City or
some other giant urban ant hill.
Ahhhh…..first world
problems. Sad!
Taking out the trash seems to be a bit different for us
proles out here in fly over country.
Here is how it works in the DBQ and DP household. Dumpblumber
does it. (except for the cat litter box bag which he refuses to acknowledge
exists.)
First of all....we don't have garbage collection
service. Mainly because it is so very expensive, and we
can do this ourselves. Even if we had garbage a service we would
still have to load the full cans onto a trailer or truck to bring them all the
way down to where the driveway meets the road.
Often impossible in the snow.
Another reason we don’t pay for garbage collection.
It can be several
weeks before we can load our cans into the dually and drive the 40 miles to the
dump. So. We have a lot of cans. Those rubber ones with the snap lock lids. The raccoons have easily figured out how to
open those cans . This means the first
person to go past the cans gets to pick up the trash and garbage strewn all
over the place. Not too bad if the
garbage is frozen solid.
We have put bungee cords on the lids to deter the raccoons. After chewing through several cords,
they have figured out how to team up and undo them. Less work and easier on
their teeth. Smart little bastards.
Note: we are building a (hopefully) raccoon proof box with a
lid that latches. It needs to hold 6
cans. I have my doubts about the
raccoons being unable to open it up.
Even if we put a combination lock on it, I’m sure they will be able to
crack the code.
Part of the household trash chore is to take the burnables that we
have separated into other cans inside the house to the burn barrel and set them
on fire when we have a big enough load.
Since there is NO place to recycle things like plastic bottles, cans,
glass etc., we just burn everything we can. (and somethings we shouldn’t),
Unlike the NY City types, we don’ have much angst about recycling and putting
things into the correct color bins for the city to pick up.
Is it flammable? BURN
IT!!! Hubby likes to burn the trash! Burning the orchard trimmings is an occasion
requiring adult beverages.
THE DUMP TRAILER
We have a hydraulic dump trailer, 12 ft X 5 ft, that is used
for overflow, non- garbage things, when not being used in the business to haul
sand, gravel, and other large items. Into the dump trailer go the dead bladder
tanks, broken piping and other company trash. Metal things, paint cans,
insulation, dead crockpots etc. As well
as when it ISN’T burn season, any large limbs and other orchard debris. So easy to unload. Woosh up. Go forward. Go backward and the
stuff slides out.
NEXT Dump Day….
Dump day is actually an event that we look forward to. (I know…sad)
Dump day is either on a Saturday
or Wednesday when the Transfer Station is open.
It really isn’t a dump in the classical sense of garbage, but I am going
to call it the dump anyway.
The Transfer Station, is where the garbage is stored in big
containers and then hauled several hundred miles away to another place to
magically disappear (I suppose). We go once a month or maybe every other month
in the winter. Dumbplumber, doing his
part for the Patriarchy loads all the crap into the dually and/or the hydraulic
trailer.
You know you are from a small town, area, when you are on
first name basis at the dump. One of the
guys who works there remarked that it (dump day) is our version of a theme
park. We often see many other people we
know at the dump, either coming or going.
As usual in a rural area…...we WAVE at each other. If we leave early enough and get done in
time, we might be able to swing by the McDonalds in the town over from us and get
an Egg McMuffin! Woo Hoo!.
Once at the dump, we get weighed and then on to the area to
unload. DP, also proving stereotypes
about men versus women are real, is a pro at being able to back up the dually,
with trailer uphill to the station. I could
never do this. His mad skilz are amazing!
There is a section for metal where the bladder tanks etc
go. A place for paint cans. Tires. We have presorted for this.
And…we, or DP mostly, unload.
So people don’t think we can't or won't recycle at all, there is
also a section for stuff that might be good enough that someone else would want
it. Into that area go the planters, gates,
bed frames and any other thing that doesn’t seem like trash or garbage, but people just
don’t want it anymore. I found a really
great garden bench one day!!!!! But, DP refused to let me take it. Prick.
On the way out, we get weighed again and pay by the pound….or
something.
Then…off to McDonalds.
Wash our hands. Get our food.
Drive the 40 miles back home and start accumulating more garbage.
Kind of different than arguing with each other about who is
going to take out that small bag of trash from the apartment kitchen to the recycling
bins, isn’t it.
How goes your garbage day?
29 comments:
With a few exceptions, Tank and Mrs. Tank have a general rule that inside the house is Mrs. Tank's job, and outside belongs to Tank. The exceptions all involve Tank doing things inside the house like washing the dishes, hanging pictures, fixing things, dealing with repairmen, etc.
Garbage is a job that starts in the house and ends outside the house. Hmmm. Ambiguity. Therefore, it is Tank's job. Also, garbage, therefore it is Tank's job.
Light bulb: rather than fight the raccoons -just let them have the garbage and the scraps. Yes - they make a mess, but they make a mess anyway. They show up anyway. Well OK - it's not a good solution because it will attract more. But in reality, the point of the creature is to eat the garbage.
DP, also proving stereotypes about men versus women are real, is a pro at being able to back up the dually, with trailer uphill to the station.
It's a rite of passage for every guy with a trailer. What I really like about getting to the top of the transfer station is being able to look down into that dark pit where the garbage disappears. On a hot summer day it's best to stand back as the smell can be overwhelming.
I do the trash and always have. Here in Irvine (and also down in Oceanside) trash is sorted into three different large plastic bins on wheels: trash, recyclables, and green waste. When we first moved here, we did a lot of remodeling and so we generated a fair amount of construction and demolition waste. We had trash piled up in the garage, including three old toilets. Little by little, I got it under control. Purchasing stuff generating a lot of cardboard and plastic recyclable waste so those bins were always full. For a time, I felt like our ueber liberal coastal elite neighbors must have thought that trashy people moved in next door.
I take out the trash trash in a white drawstring bag. My wife has always had an aversion to this. Sometimes, in jest, I taunt her by tying the bag in situ, lifting the bag out of the rigid container and clutching it, holding it close. This always gets a shudder out of her.
We didn't have a green waste bin at first because that woman who lived here before didn't believe in it or perhaps there were no men around to help her cope. I looked at the overgrown backyard vegetation and vines and thought "I've got to get rid rid of this" but the indoor projects took priority. A few months ago, the indoor urgencies were more or less complete and I got a large green bin and filled it every weekend. I work full time so this is all done on weekends. Now that the majority of the outdoor work is done except for soil prep and planting, I'm thinking seriously about compost -- something I've never done but would like to do. I would appreciate and comments on that regard: above ground, or pit? How much maintenance?
In Brooklyn we just throw our garbage at Puerto Ricans.
Of course I am old school.
Is it flammable? BURN IT!!!
"Bio-de-buranble" is a great phrase to throw out to make your lefty friends' heads explode.
In town, it's easy to take out the trash. Once a week Western Disposal picks up 2 roller bins. Trash and one other. The other alternates between single stream recyclables and compost. We also have a location to drop off recycled materials near 63rd and Arapahoe. I often take large boxes there. I DO NOTE THAT in this lefty progressive town, almost everyone who drops off at the recycle center does it wrong. They do NOT flatten boxes, and they often do NOT remove the non-recyclable packaging material from the boxes... like the Styrofoam.
Styrofoam goes to CHARM - Boulder's hard to recycle materials. You have to pay 3$ for the privilege of recycling hard to recycle materials. I do it. I'm a right wing nutjob who is far far far far far more eco-obsessed than most of the so called green-fakes.
Stuff Charm will take:
Used cooking oil
Used yoga matts
a bag of plastic bags
styrofoam
Used computers, TV's and printers ( this costs more than the 3$ entry fee)
Used clothing
Shredded office and paper (this costs more than the 3$ entry fee)
Old, used and unwanted Plumbing fixtures - like toilets and sinks
Scrap metal
Chords and small appliances
Old plastic lawn chairs and like items
You can also donate items from the home that are in re-usable condition to ReSource. They share the same yard as Charm, but offer a place to drop-off and get a tax receipt. I drop a lot of remnant tile and used light fixtures there. Old cabinets, doors and windows are big items they take and re-sell, too.
cords
LOL - chords. lalalala chords.
I take out the trash. Is this hard?
@ Chick
Composting can be quite a chore if you plan to do a lot of it. We have bins like these (Not ours but similar.)
If you have a small garden and don't feel like shoveling a lot .....you would probably want a barrel compost system. Like this
There are a lot of plans on the net to make a barrel system and plenty of really good advice on composting.
The hardest thing for me to do was to try to 'remember' to separate the vegetable matter from the other garbage (meat, grease etc) and keep in a small composting container.
Mostly we compost the leaves from our property, orchard trees and other garden green debris
As a kid, my job was burning the trash. I loved it. I wish we could burn trash in our homes and businesses again. I know it's probably not environmentally healthy, but it would be nice to get that free heat from all our combustible trash. My home in CA, built in 1954, had a built-in incinerator in the wall, which is of course illegal to use now. I wish there was a simple, cheap incinerator you could buy to do that. Especially at work where we have literally tons of waste paper, cardboard and wood which I have to pay to have hauled away, and then pay to heat the place as well. I wonder how the pollution from picking up, delivering, and then landfilling and recycling compares to just burning it at home with a well designed system.
Today I was reading about rendered meat used in animal feed. In Europe they banned it after the Mad Cow incident, and instead use imported soybean meal, and the production of that is now deforesting the Amazon. Much of the meat by-products they produce there are now exported, but a lot of the lower quality stuff is used to fuel power plants.
If I could find a use for dog shit, I'd be golden.
I did find a use recently when some Amazon packages (Christmas presents) were stolen off our front porch. We put out decoy packages with fragrant contents. Our neighborhood watch heard about it, and now everyone on the street is doing it. For the criminals it's now high risk with a much diminished chance of reward.
Feminists are always worried about the patriarchy.
Until there's a chance their hair will get wet.
I pay to have my non-burnable, non-recyclable stuff picked up. It goes into a bin that has wheels and a secure lid to keep the raccoons out. The problem is I pay 20 bucks a month but only wheel it out once or twice a month - I just don't produce that much that I can't burn.
Recycling is a racket - don't ask me how I know, but I know people. People who have Italian last names. They say they are in the "solid waste" business. That sounds better than "the racket". Clever, they are, too - they are supported by tax money, they get raw materials for free, they sell what they can, charge the taxpayers to dispose of the rest, and all the while, the pile of money they recline on grows ever larger.
I burn paper, cardboard and wood scrap from my shop and tree work. My burn pit is in the middle of a hollow tree I cut down, and even after 4 years of burning, the roots are still there. Occasionally I take a pick to them and bust off what I can, and I soak them in used motor oil - rrr - what a plume of smoke that makes when it burns. But the roots abide.
When I rehabbed my old house I had a lot of stuff to get rid of, including a truck load of carpet and carpet padding. I drove to the transfer station, tossed it all into a dumpster, then I was informed that I had used the wrong one. The guy, who hadn't bothered to tell me prior to me tossing that ton of crap, was going to call the police on me, so into the dumpster I went, tossed it all back into my truck, then into the correct dumpster. Some world class muttering went on that afternoon, I'll have you know.
Due to limits one what the city would pick up where I used to live, I worked on disguising what I was throwing away. I managed to sneak out tons of drywall, scrap building materials, even a dryer that I cut up and put into plastic bags. The old tv was the most fun, however, because I got to implode the big CRT - good times.
Like Bags, I started burning the family trash when I was a wee sprat. We had great fun - gasoline, trash, sealed bottles and jars - what a great way learn about fire and thermodynamics. And chemistry - see that black smoke? That's from refined hydrocarbons formed into plastic! Wee! Look out, Sweden, here comes some acid rain! Yay!
If I could find a use for dog shit, I'd be golden
There is a service in Madison that will pick up all the dog dirt (as Mom used to call it) and they then compost it into fertilizer somewhere else. I just flush our dog's defecations down the toilet, but we have a neighbor that just lets their dog's do fester on the lawn until the service comes. I guess now it all freezes. I still follow the maxim I learned as a kid: watch where you put your feet when you're walking. We had lots of dogs around when I was young.
Our recycle pickup is every other week. I like to take my bin out on the wrong week. If you're out their early enough with it, then the whole neighborhood follows suit. (No, I actually don't do this, but I think about it).
It's amazing to me how much trash other people generate. We generally have a grocery bag each week.
DBQueen, your write-up about trash is awesome reading. Makes me wish I lived someplace with a dump. When we lived in rural RI, I once found a College yearbook with my Aunt's picture in it in the swap shack! The college was 1000+ miles away from the dump!
Who posted the exploding purse video?
That right there should be an item you can buy on Amazon.
"The problem is I pay 20 bucks a month...
I pay about $450/mo for garbage pickup for the business. Twice a week for regular garbage and weekly for the cardboard. Obviously, that's where my household trash goes. And at that price I throw away anything and don't expect any questions.
Thanks, DBQ. My question is more general: Does the bin have to be raised? In Italy, years ago, I saw that they composted in pits. Is there something about aerobic vs. anaerobic that works better?
Red worms - vermiculture FTW!
Cast!
I really like the area of the 'dump' where people put things that are basically still useful or of a quality that someone might want them.
Next dump run, we are leaving our Sharp Microwave with a note stating that it works...well except for the zero number touch spot. If you want 20 seconds you get the choice of 19 or 21. Otherwise it is perfectly good. I mainly used it in my office to heat coffee and microwave some lunches.
We bought a newer microwave and I know 'someone' will want it. Why trash it?
I also have a Cannon printer that I don't need anymore since I bought a new laser printer. It also is going into the good but don't want it spot.
Both will be gone within an hour.
Make sure you wipe the hard drive on your computer before you trash it! Also applies to smart phones and any other device that stores your info.
My dad used to burn as much garbage as possible in a burn barrel way behind the house and take everything else to the garbage bin at his office. One Christmas he got a little too into it and add a trash run to the burn barrel including as yet unwrapped prezzies. Hilarity ensued. Throwing stuff away used to be free and easy or at least fun. Now it's a business. The youngest kid had to empty wastebaskets and sort the trash. Then dad would finish it off.
With a cloth?
Haaaa ....
I pay about sixty dollars every three months to have my trash bin emptied via robotic arm into the trash truck. Currently I don't fuss with recycling. But the city will take just about everything except liquid latex paint and tube teevees.
@deborah: You don't pay for the recycling; you pay to make trash go away.
As a kid, we had a garbage pit dug into the ground out back near the woods. It had a step on lid. Put all the garbage into a pan and one of us kids would run it out.
I almost forgot , next to the recycle center is a place to drop of unwanted household chemicals. The drop-off is free, but they are only open Weds-Friday. You can drop off old paint and household cleaners and chemicals. I think they also take used florescent light bulbs. I have no idea what they do with most of it, but they have a free give-away area where you can grab any of the old but still usable household cleaners and chemicals.
Yakety Yak! Don't Talk Back!
lol chick
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