That’s Not Garbage
We recently received the county’s new 50 gallon EZ Go Waste Cart. The garbage trucks have an automated mechanical arm that reaches out and grabs the bin. It’s all pretty clean if you don’t like to haul your stinky trash cans and wet garbage bags to the curb twice a week. Emptying the kitchen trash can isn’t a drag anymore now that the EZ Go Waste Cart has an attached lid that closes tightly, keeping out the maggots. I like them. Every few days, it’s the same scene: Green bins that stand up along the curbs like soldiers at attention.
Except for ours. Our bin sits quietly by the side gate, wondering when it will be his turn to line up with the rest of the troops. Sometimes we have to push it to the curb when it has only two bags (the 50-gallon bins fit up to 5 bags) because the stink of decomposing fowl.
Why don’t we have a lot of garbage? Are we pack rats? I often wonder what in the world are my neighbors throwing away that has to sit in the landfill forever? We can’t recycle certain plastics, and not all organic matter can go in the compost pile. So scratched CDs, old polyester clothing, and rotten meat end up in my EZ Go Waste Cart.
Family members come over, eat, and throw away their garbage. But I find myself picking the garbage of stuff that can go in the recycling bin or in the compost pile. Dad and I dice the watermelon rinds, banana peels, and broccoli stalks that would be tossed into a 13-gallon plastic bag by any other family.
Dad drove through an affluent neighborhood a few weeks ago, noticing that one family had put to the curb three EZ Go Waste Carts! Even the Duggars couldn’t possbily create that much garbage (150 gallons) in just a few days.
At least my own children know that a banana peel is not garbage.
