Trash Day
A mundane task leads to the unexpected
Tuesday is trash day in our little corner of LA. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power sends out fleets of rumbling, roaring trash, recycling, and yard waste collection trucks throughout the week to all parts of the city — reaching some 4 million residents across the sprawling metropolis. I’m not sure where they all come from, or where they go afterward, but for most of Tuesday I can count on lots of local crashing and banging, the vehicles’ giant automatic side metal pincher arms protruding and grasping one can at a time from the curb, then lifting, surging, and slamming each household’s array of discards into a single hulking steel collection bin. There’s the sound of a giant, roaring fan, the screeching of brakes — and then, repeat — all the way down Moorpark Street.
The LADWP tells us to have our bins on the street by 7 a.m. on our particular pickup day. Most of us have one each of black, blue, and green heavy plastic bins for trash, recycling and yard waste respectively; some have more, as needed. During my Tuesday neighborhood strolls, I’ve noticed one house — I think a movie star lives there — regularly sets out seven yard waste bins and almost as many bins in the other colors. I’ve tallied the number in my head, feeling virtuous by comparison with my meager one of each.
I’ve been working on lessening my footprint, condensing our family’s weekly trash output down to a single, compostable bag. I’m sure (or at least I hope) everyone wants to do their part. In my own efforts to be “greener,” for example, I recently bought a refillable water bottle with built-in filter, to avoid using one-time-use water bottles when I’m out and about. I do feel somewhat guilty, though, about having ordered my new “green” gadget online; I hope the resources used to ship it to me across the country will eventually be balanced by less end-user waste. I am ever more conscious of how much of our daily living is inherently waste-creating. I do worry maybe I’m becoming just a little neurotic, as I keep that running tally in my brain, secretly hoping my little deeds might one day win me a place on some cosmic “good” list — or at least make some small contribution toward the future health of our planet.
Monday evening, many an Angeleno dutifully rolls their plastic bins out to the curb to ensure they’re ready for pickup in the morning — or perhaps out of courtesy, to avoid waking neighbors with an early racket. There’s nothing quiet about rolling the trash bins to the street — every bump in the concrete setting off a resounding boom of a double bass drum. Then, throughout the night, the booms are inevitably followed by another sound — the echo of tinkling glass, as stealthy, independent collectors make their way through the dark, sifting through the blue bins and adding the bounty to their bulging, handheld sacks. Some pull or push shopping carts or baby carriages to help carry the loot. The entrepreneurs work swiftly, sorting their product and slamming blue lids in succession, always at least a few steps ahead of the imminent city trucks.
Hoping to beat the bottle pirates at their game, I recently started waiting until precisely 7 a.m. to roll out my blue bin as quietly as possible; only the other colors go out the night before. The three trucks’ schedules seem to vary throughout the day largely, week by week. If I’m working from home on Tuesday, I remember to keep an ear carefully tuned and then watch for the black-bin pickup, to be sure to fetch it back to my driveway, pronto. If not, a neighbor or two is bound to walk by with their adorable pooch and take advantage of the easy curbside poop-disposal access. Fetching that emptied bin straightaway feels like a triumph (ha! on them); on the other hand, if I’m not quite fastidious enough, we’re stuck with that black bin baking in the afternoon sun of our driveway, its putrid contents wafting into a bedroom window all week long.
In the end, I’m afraid it’s likely just a lot of wasted peevish energy and drama, on my part: every Tuesday’s trash day replete with so much nervous conniving and listening and eyeing and fetching. This morning, after rolling the blue recycling bin out to the curb as usual at 7 a.m., I stopped to sweep up one last dustbin full of leaves from the driveway. Carrying it out to the curb to top off the waiting green bin, I came upon some fellow already bent over the adjacent blue bin. One flannel shirted arm held up the lid as he leaned deep inside with the other, sifting through glass treasure. It was the pirate’s lucky day; there were probably two weeks’ worth of wine bottles in there. Feeling helplessly annoyed, I twisted up my mouth and paused awkwardly in front of the green bin. Just then the man emerged from his plunder to see me standing there, my arms full of debris. Under the shadow of his soiled hat emerged the widest, kindest smile I’ve ever seen — and I mean that—and without a flinch, the man dropped what he was doing and stepped over to hold the green bin lid open for me and my pile of rubbish. I wanted to cry. “Why, thank you!” was all I could manage.
