If we’re honest, progress is not exactly what it’s cracked up to be. For every step forward, we seem to make three back. The key, of course, as great minds have reminded us, is to keep going. There are, however, times when ‘keeping going’ is not the easiest thing to do when frustration intercedes. The philosopher and mathematician, Bertrand Russell, may have had it right when he argued that the stupid are always cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt. I think he may have been thinking of frustrations in life, especially with the trivial things.
Comus was reminded of these petty things recently when he toiled with, of all things, city trash pickup. (Do bear in mind Alexander Pope’s famous warning about petty matters: “What might contests rise from trivial things.”) Readers should know that Comus has been around for some time, and time was long ago, when trash pickup by the city involved two or three men and a truck. Like now, they come around usually once a week. Unlike now, they picked up the trash that you put out. They did not complain about the way you put your trash out. Whatever you put out, they picked up. Most days, if memory serves, they did this splendidly, and with no complaints.
We live in a modern age today, however, and like most things, progress has replaced competence. Comus is reminded of Nate Bargatze’s piece (viewed here https://tinyurl.com/a269fmwt), in which he talks about our future where all the hotel showers spill water all over the floor; that’s the future. Our future with city trash pickup is one in which we are charged for the mechanized robotic claw that strangles oversized, plastic trash cans and pitches only certain kinds of trash into its oversized maw. I italicize certain because our future with trash pickup is now relegated to sorting our trash, breaking down boxes, and making sure everything fits inside the oversized plastic containers. In my neighborhood, there is no glass recycling, please. One bin sorts out “yard trash,” and the other house trash. Certain kinds of trash are not allowed, and if you forget, you’ll get a warning in the form of a potential fine.
Thus, on days when your trash happens to be enormous, you’re likely to be out of luck. Birthdays, celebrations, Christmas, Thanksgiving, or any other event in which crowds at your house multiply your trash, pickup that week may be relegated to what that one bin can hold. That bin, of course, is yours at a price–$70 in our neighborhood. You can buy as many as you need for $70 each, added to your bill for convenience in one fell swoop, or over the year in smaller increments. That brings us to the truck with the massive robotic arm. It, too, comes at a price that has been added to your bill. The Schwarzenegger-like robotic arm is so massive, it will eventually crush your $70 bin, which, according to one city worker Comus recently chatted with, was never meant to last more than 5-7 years. Over time, with freezes and hot weather and the weekly crushing of the can, these bins fail. Another can be purchased for $70. Do you see a pattern here?
We come now to recycle items. We now all know that recycling is a losing proposition financially. It’s a kind of virtue signaling that we pay for being on the planet and living in a modern way: plastics, glass, and more. Recycling used to include glass, but it is now a thing of the past, at least on trash day. That will come later, below. Recycling means sorting through your plastics, checking for the right number, and rinsing all of them unless you want unwanted creatures around your trash bins. A grant allowed, for the duration of that grant, large recycling bins equal in size to trash bins, wheels for easy transport to the street. That grant has ended, so you’re stuck once more with a wheelless recycle bin, the dragging of which to the street is sure to wear away the plastic bottom. Replacements are available for, well, never mind. You can guess.
But what are we to do about glass? At one point, glass was part of the recycling strategy, but no longer. Apparently, it was too expensive to continue. Now, if you are really serious about the planet, you can pack up your glass—as well as all the other trash your weekly trash “pickup” cannot accommodate—and drive it several miles away. Be prepared to sort it out—clear, green, blue, brown—and pitch it in the proper railcar-sized containers. Are we having fun yet?
Honestly, trash pickup not only requires the city to send trucks out to your house, but every member of your family participating in the sorting, pitching and transporting of the trash. Without paying the taxpayers, the trash would go nowhere.
Alas, it appears that the great essayist Samuel Johnson was right after all. Life is not from enjoyment to enjoyment, but from want to want. Welcome to the future.
