Trash Talk
You may not think trash is very interesting. To be honest, I don’t either. However, I have watched with some interest the brouhaha over Tulsa’s trash service switch. We don’t have our new containers at home yet, but we got them at the office yesterday. It was kind of amusing to watch the truck hauling the huge trailer piled high with trash containers try to navigate a turn off of a side street onto Denver. I was pretty sure it might topple over, but it didn’t.
Once the containers were unloaded, I pulled off the booklet that was attached to the container’s handle and read the trash rules. I like the photo illustrations. As a person who never reads instructions, it always helps me to have pictures. (You should see me put together IKEA furniture!)
OK, so, as I was explaining to my husband as we were having our coffee this morning, we’re going to need to follow some new procedures.
Here they are:
1. No more running out in his boxers and flagging down our trash collectors because we forgot to put the trash at the curb. It has to be out there BEFORE 6 am on collection day.
2. All trash must be bagged. This one is going to be the most difficult for us because we don’t bag our trash. Don’t we have enough non-biodegradable plastic in our environment without more unnecessary plastic bags? I’ve switched to reusable bags for my groceries, and I try to use as many reusable containers as I can. We also compost the icky stuff. I don’t like the idea of spending money to buy plastic trash bags. So, do you all have any ideas? I know there must be places or websites where I can find bio-degradable bags. I assume they’re going to be expensive. Can any of you give me some suggestions for places to get big biodegradable trash bags?
3. Evidently, there are special tags that you have to purchase at convenience stores to tie around any “overflow” bags (those that might not fit into your trash receptacles). I didn’t read this part of the instruction booklet very carefully, so I’m not sure what the deal is with this. For the moment, I’m going to assume that our trash won’t be overflowing.
4. Speaking of overflowing, we are to make sure that our trash containers’ lids are closed tightly and that the containers are placed so that the openings face the street. Also, the containers should be at least three feet apart. Oh, and you can’t place them under overhanging branches.
5. During my discussion with my husband this morning, I realized that we never specified what containers we wanted. That just wasn’t at the top of my “to do” list, and it must not have been on my husband’s either. I sure hope we get a recycling container because right now, my husband collects all of our recyclables in the garage and then hauls them off every week or so. Here’s the thing about my husband’s recycling technique. I buy containers for each recyclable item, thinking that it will keep everything neat and tidy, and he doesn’t use them. It doesn’t exactly look like Martha Stewart’s garage. Our garage is probably more like Homer Simpson’s. Anyway, the point is, we do recycle, and I’m thinking that if we have this special recycling container that I will no longer have to dodge glass bottles, newspapers and plastic cartons when I walk through our garage. It will all be neatly trashed in our attractive blue recyclinig container.
6. There’s also something in the trash brochure about grass cuttings and branches and stuff, but I sort of skipped that. I’ll pay more attention when we actually get our trash container at home.
My eyes are glazing over with all this trash talk. If you want more information, or want to download the brochure, go here https://www.cityoftulsa.org/trash.
