What’s With the Recycling Bins?
February 14th 2010 21:00
Photo by Nachoman-au. Used in accordance with the terms of Wikimedia Commons’ GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
While we’re on the subject of bins (see previous posts), my caretaker friend Fred was saying, “Why are people so stupid? They put the recycling in the ordinary bins and the trash in the recycling bins. It doesn’t matter how many signs I put up telling people what goes where, they still do it. And what I don’t get is they have to walk further away to put the trash in the recycling bins so wouldn’t it make sense to put it in the ordinary bins, which are closer? And finally, don’t they notice the piles of paper in the bin and realise this is a recycling bin?”
Fred is not alone. My sister’s caretaker has the same complaints. He likes to have a b*tch and moan to my sister.
I tell Fred that the tenants in my building do the same thing, too. The other day, I was mystified to find a pot plant inside the paper recycling bin. Like Fred’s building, the closest bins are the normal ones so why wouldn’t the person have just put it in there?
Fred has another rant: “Why do people put soft drink bottles in the recycling bin when they’re not empty. Do they think the garbo is going to empty the bottles before recycling them?”
When I was studying journalism at university, we had to critique a magazine on its style and content. One of my friends decided to do Vogue. Unlike me, who was working full time and studying part time, my friend had just moved out of home and was a full time student. Finances were tough. Hence, Vogue, because he always found back issues in his building’s recycling bin.
Shortly after we got our assignment, my friend was rummaging through his bins, looking for Vogue back issues when a woman confronted him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked him.
“Looking for old magazines,” he replied.
“You can’t do that! That is a garbage bin so whatever goes in there has to stay in there!”
“Mind your own business! There’s no law that says you can’t take stuff out of a bin.”
Ahhh, so I am not the only person who has to deal with a bin screamer.
“Those bins are protected,” says my colleague in his attempt to rile me up.
“Some people need to get a life,” I said. When I asked Fred about the ethics of putting your recycling in other people’s bins, he said he didn’t have a problem with it as long as the quantity was small. “It’s when it’s huge piles of newspapers that it becomes a problem. We had someone who used to do that and I found out where they lived so I took it back and dumped it back at their place.”
| 49 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
