Friday, April 03, 2009

A weekly ritual

Once a week, two monster trucks make their appearance, for which I thank the god of municipal services. The garbage is once more removed. Civilization. An interesting entertainment, too, watching the great claw reach out, tenderly grab the tipster, upend it into the waiting maw, then replace it by the roadside, tho not always upright.

This is truck #2, which collects the recyclables. In our town, at least, we are not required to sort the plastic from the paper and the tins (no glass allowed).

You will note, however, that on our unpaved street, these behemouths raise a certain amount of dust as they go about their business. BTW, how would you like to be embraced by that set of claws?

Of course, there are problems disposing certain products, such as leftover paint, or large objects. Once in a while, the weekly pickup can work even for a problem child. This tired water heater sat leaning against the shed, next to the green tipsters, for several months. Finally, someone decided to see what would happen, gathered enough muscle to move the heater into the garbage container (below). Lo and behold, the next week it was gone. Still, a lot of junk gets thrown out in the woods and the back country, partly because of the difficulty (and cost) of doing it legitimately.

Link Time: Local blogger-makes-good news: Jenny, of The Imaginary Village and of GeekMom in the Courier, is now writing also for Wired Magazine's GeekDad blog. As icing on the cake, in May she'll help man the magazine's booth at the annual Maker Faire in San Mateo. Way to go! Also: there's a worldwide celebration I hadn't heard of -- Yuri's Night (April 12), to celebrate the exploration of space. And, while we're away from this country, go to the site of the Dutch Hema department store chain and watch the graphics fun; as long as you're there, do note the one product which has an Ameerican name.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We've become so dependent on the weekly pickup of "waste", what would we do if they simply stopped? Yikes!

~Anon in AV.

Linda G. said...

We used to take glass to containers in various parking lots, but those have disapeared. I used to think it would be fun to make a 'bottle wall" as some folks used to do. That idea might fit in best with your post on fencing:)

Granny J said...

anon av -- that's the sort of question addressed in Cody Lundeen's book, When All Hell Breaks Loose.

lindaG -- glass bottle wall -- that might be an idea whose time has returned. There is a glass disposal bin over at Prescott College & the college has played around with using broken glass as a substitute for grass.

 
Photo Blog Blog Top Sites Blog Directory for Prescott, AZ

Local Blogs - Blog Top Sites