(UN)RELIABLE SOURCES: 014
CLEANING UP AFTER THE GARBAGE MEN

by FRANK O'DONNELL
OCTOBER 8, 2006

We've added a new task to our list of chores.

On Monday nights, we put out the garbage - properly sorted, of course.

Cans, bottles and plastic containers - all nicely rinsed and towel-dried - in the blue bins. Everything but the bottles crushed underfoot for condensing purposes. Clean paper and cardboard in the green bins. Yard waste in those oversized lunch bags. Everything else bagged and tied in the Rubbermaid barrels.

All dragged to the end of the driveway, left there for collection early Tuesday morning.  

Then on Tuesday night, we clean up after the garbage men.

Seems like, no matter how hard they try - and I'm sure they give it their best shot - our garbage men are unable to get every last bit of garbage into their garbage trucks.

Wait, I have to apologize for my lack of political correctness.

What I meant to say was, our sanitation engineers are challenged in their attempts to completely convey our partially consumed disposables into their mobile refuse collection vehicles.

There, I feel better now.

I'm told that I'm not alone - in having to clean up after our sanitation engineers, that is.

Believe me, I understand that it's hard work, and thankless work as well.

But it's not like these folks were conscripted and forced into the refuse service.

So is it asking too much to expect that everything we leave at the curb will be removed?

Last week alone, the kids and I had to pick up some tomato cans, a couple of gallon milk containers and assorted bits of cardboard. The tomato cans had rolled away - one into the bushes on the other side of our driveway and one onto the lawn across the street. One never made it across the street, crushed by a passing motorist and laying smack dab on the yellow line in the middle of the road.

Okay, perhaps I'm partially to blame. Those cans hadn't been crushed - they were last minute additions to the pile on Monday night. Still, they were inside the bin, and could only have come loose in the transfer process from bin to truck.

I know the trucks make a lot of noise, but the sanitation engineers didn't hear the cans hit the ground?

Maybe it's some sort of work rule. If the cans are in the bin or in the truck, they are the responsibility of the sanitation engineers. But if they're not inside either, they're outside the sphere of responsibility - even if they're outside the bin or the truck because of the actions of the sanitation engineer.

I'm sure there's a lawyer behind all of this. Why we didn't listen to Shakespeare 400 years ago, I'll never know. But I digress.

Let's get back to noise for a minute. How is it that in this day and age of plastic garbage containers, these guys still manage to make as much noise as if we still used galvanized aluminum trash barrels?

Every Tuesday morning, you'd swear there was an audition for "Stomp!" outside my bedroom window.

And why is it so difficult to put the garbage barrels back in their original position? They're usually tossed somewhere in the general vicinity, left to roll around until finding a convenient resting place. On a windy day, that makes for a nice little obstacle course for the drivers in our neighborhood.

If the barrels aren't rolling around, they're placed across my driveway to serve as a receptacle barricade. On more than one morning, the sanitation engineers have put the barrels so close to the back of my car that the barrels were invisible to me - until I'd run them over.

Which poses an interesting dilemma. How exactly do I dispose of a destroyed garbage barrel?

Do I cut it into small pieces that will fit into my recycle bin? Or do I just leave it in the middle of the street and wait for someone to call DPW to come and pick it up?

Okay, I'll recycle it.

It will probably come back to life as a speed hump – and won't that be ironic?

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