We are fortunate enough to have weekly, curbside recycling in our city. No need to sort your aluminum, glass or plastic. Just throw it all in blue bags and keep it separate from your regular garbage. Most people put their garbage on one side of the driveway and their recyclables on the other side on trash pickup day.
Over the years, we've seen our share of pickers, early Monday mornings. Folks in pick up trucks who've taken our broken bread machines or defunct dehumidifiers. But no one has ever played games like this.........
Last week, I noticed a couple of beer cans out by our recycling. I knew it wasn't ours, as I would never buy beer in a can! Probably some damn kids! I went out to stuff them into one of our recycling bags, when I noticed one of the bags wasn't ours......a bag full of beer cans, beer bottles and empty wine bottles, reeking of cigarettes, with a few butts on the ground. It was almost as if someone had just stood there seconds before, smoking a few cigs and having a few beers, then bagged it all and left. Weird! I figured that someone on another street must have missed the truck and drove over to our street and tossed the bag in our yard. Or some husband or kid was trying to hide their party from a spouse or parent, but still wanted to be green!
Fast forward to this week. I'm pulling out of the driveway in the late morning and notice that ALL FOUR of our recycling bags are missing. I looked up and down the street and everyone else's blue bags are still sitting at the end of their driveways. No bags blown into the street (it wasn't windy and there's no way all four bags were light enough to go anywhere). Who would come by and take all our bags? If someone was looking to make some aluminum can profits, it makes no sense to take all our bags and ignore everyone else's. And we probably only had about six pop cans in there anyway.
Two weeks in a row of weirdness, so I texted my neighbor with my story. She said she had put out only one big bag of recycling that morning, but now there were two bags out there. Yes, I went over to inspect the smaller bag to see if it was one of ours, but found Snapple bottles, which we don't drink.
This is just so bizarre, I'm not sure what to think!
Ok that IS weird! At first I figured it was kids who were hiding evidence of a party too. But stealing your recycling? That is just bizarre.
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, if they swap bags around, it's kind of like Christmas every week... opening the bag to see what Santa left you. :)
Well, yeah, extra bags has a fairly straightforward (if somewhat odd) explanation, which you arrived at. We have, on extremely rare occasions, taken our trash/recycling to another neighborhood when we missed our own pickup day.
ReplyDeleteBut off the top of my head, I can't think of a reason that someone would take someone else's recyling away. . .
Our part of town has a fair number of folks who go out on trash day checking out the 'big items', scavenging cords from appliances, or washer/dryer motors or controllers, or a couch to burn at their next party (there's a college town right next door. . .)
Just Me - LOL....I know, it is sort of interesting to play, "What's in the bag?"
ReplyDeleteCraig - Couch burning?? My alma mater got into some trouble with that a while back.....but yeah, the trading around of recycling makes zero sense.
Grab yourself a donut (bagel? I forget) and enjoy the show. Or a tree limb, we ain't picky!
ReplyDeleteWe had pickers for a number of years who'd sometimes make a mess until one time I caught 'em. Made 'em list what they wanted and told them I'd leave anything on their list out separate form then forward, problem solved ...
Free beer cans? What's not to like about that??
"Or some husband or kid was trying to hide their party from a spouse or parent, but still wanted to be green!"
ReplyDeleteBwhahahahhahahaha! That made me HOWL!
It's funny, because even though I live in a city and reside in a building that has it's own trash room in the basement (with recycling bins), I've heard of others who live in brownstone apartment builds who put their trash by the curb, that they too have strangers pick through their bags to make aluminum can profits. Usually, it's homeless people who need the money.
However, that's VERY odd about about your bags being swapped around in your neighborhood. I bet it kids just being kids.
But you're right....that's very bizarre.
X - 'Grab yourself a bagel or a tree limb and enjoy the show' - ok, that TOTALLY made my day! TRUE DAT!
ReplyDeleteRon - LOL....you SO get my humor! I rarely see kids around here, so I don't think that's the deal. I'm going to monitor the situation next Monday and report back!
Somehow or other, couch-burning has become a time-honored tradition at my alma mater. A few years back, there was a riot/party over in the 'student ghetto', which involved dozens of couches set aflame in the street. Of course, the police cracked down in the wake of the, uh, 'incident', and for months afterward, all the second-hand stores in town had a glut of couches, 'cuz the students weren't burning 'em anymore. . .
ReplyDeleteDu-uh. Well, it's OBVIOUS, isn't it? Aliens. It's just No-one has explained to them yet, the human etiquette of re-cycling - cut them some slack, they'll catch on eventually.
ReplyDeleteOdd. We have curbside recycling, too. but it all goes into a big rolling bin with a hinged lid. Makes it harder for others to foll with and dogs can;t get into it.
ReplyDeleteAnd hey, if the wait goes too long light a fire, put the bagel on the stick and roast it over the fire. You know, to keep your strength up while you wait ....
ReplyDeleteHi Bijoux,
ReplyDeleteThat is so weird!!
Where we live, I have not seen that type of activity.I have seen a few times elders that pick through the cans at the Elementary school
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We have have plastic hinged cans.
:(. We recylce trash 2x a week here,including glass. The non-recyclebles are picked up in the neighborhood 3x week.
Keep an eye on those blue bags ;)
Shrinky - Hhhmm, I remember someone suggesting aliens were leaving the bagels on our street as well! You may be on to something!
ReplyDeleteAgent - We had to give up on using actual trash cans/bins here. The garbage men throw the cans willy nilly and they end up rolling down the street and then being run over by a minivan.
Barb - ?? I can't believe how often you have trash service!!!!
Hmm that is very odd? Maybe people are taking the bags to bring the contents to the redemption center? That doesnt explain your neighbor finding an extra bag though... please keep us updated on this bizarre scenario! You have me curious!
ReplyDeleteweird indeed. someone with an odd recycling fetish.
ReplyDeleteI don't even have a guess about any of that. A nanny cam placed strategically in a nearby plant might give you some answers. ;)
ReplyDeleteWe have trash and recycling picked up on different days and people drive around on the nights before and morning of collections to look for things. We put our old stove out one night and within minutes a guy was here with a truck.