Neither garbage nor recycling pickup have come early in the day in the 18 years that we've lived here. They used to keep decent hours and come by from late morning to mid-afternoon. Back until a few months ago, the two pickups would be done together with a truck that could handle both streams. Now, the provincial government has rejigged the system, and the recycling is done by a different outfit with each company following its own schedule.
The garbage pickup is just about as it always has been, but the recyclers are teasing me. One recent morning, and not all that long ago, I barely got the bins out in time as the truck was to my door when I opened the garage just a little past 7 o'clock.
One doesn't like to put stuff out the night before (and never garbage!), particularly in winter, because it could blow away or get buried in snow, or get in the way of the snow contractors. So good ole AC has set an alarm for 6:45. Usually, I am up by then, but sometimes I am jarred awake causing me to rush down in my pjs (remember it is winter in Canada) to get both the bins and garbage out. It's not fun but needs must.
Suddenly, after I have adjusted my habits, they have altered their course again. As I write this, it is 5:45p.m. (not a.m. !) and the bins are still out there where they have now been for 11 hours — in the freezing rain as it turns out. But if I go back to putting it out later, they could switch it up again on any given morning. Sigh.
We had left the car in the driveway to make it easier to bring the bins in through our narrow garage, but we hurried to pull it in when we saw that we were getting freezing rain. Unfortunately, we were too late and the car was already iced up. I had to run it for awhile to melt the ice because I couldn't see to drive it into the garage. Scraping the windshield was too much for my poor rotator cuff, so I let the motor run long enough to begin melting the ice. Sue also stepped into the breach to finish the job.
.webp)
19 comments:
Yikes! That is a LOT of freezing rain. Is that perhaps the reason they didn't pick up the recycling?
How frustrating that they keep changing their schedule.
Freezing rain is a dreaded forecast! So dangerous under foot and hard to remove from the car!
Despite warnings from our city government, our trash contractor has been known to arrive as early as 5 am in the morning. So I, as everyone else, put ours out the evening before and deal with the consequences, i.e. picking up trash that has blown or dumping out the rainwater in the bottom before putting it back. This past snow storm, I put it out Thursday night as usual, dug it out Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday before it was finally collected on Wednesday evening. I pulled it up to the garage, sorted through the house and garage to fill it up again and wheeled it back down Thursday evening where it was promptly emptied by the garbage truck around 5:30 a.m.
We would have to contract ourselves for rubbish pick up, and I don't know if it would include recycles. Instead on Saturday mornings we head to the recycle center run by our town. It's an all volunteer affair and the only charge is per bag of trash that goes in the trash truck and that's dependent upon how heavy the bag is. With composting our bags are very light since we recycle glass, metal, plastic, paper, cardboard and styrofoam. We have three recycle bins in the closet and a fourth by my desk. It's a nice way to meet our neighbors.
We sometimes have issues, too, but, fortunately, we don't have snow and freezing rain in Hawaii.
At least you don't have bears helping themselves to left-over goodies, so all our cans are now bear-proof. Yes winter weather is the other bear of a thing to deal with.
Your poor car and poor you too. We had a freezing rain last week for the first time in ages, nasty stuff. We have carports here at the old condo so the cars stayed relatively dry and mostly at home because the driveway out is uphill. Hope that's the last of the icy rain for you.
My garbage and recycle/yard waste pick ups are everchanging also--mostly one way before the other but today at about the same time. And early! I do put them out the day before because I'm not an early riser. Freezing rain, ugh.
These are infuriating problems. You try hard to accommodate the system and then without warning they change it.
Fortunately, there are recycle rooms inside the mill buildings, but unfortunately they are often over-filled and definitely non-recyclables left in the rooms. Garbage disposal is by trash chutes and the one for our floor is directly across from our apt door, which is both handy and at times noisy. We had a 2-inch snowfall over the weekend with both cars parked underground so no cleaning off, thankfully.
True that we sometimes better look at aspects of life with a different perspective.
I hear you! I think we are having more issues with crows, rather than other critters.
It is difficult when they are inconsistent. We just ... OK, I just put it out by 7:30. JB's rotator cuff is the same.
These are the kind of daily things that can drive you crazy.
Our waste food change on a whim. We have to get them out by 6:00am to be sure to get pickup. I have missed a couple
Of times even though their usual is around 2:00pm.
PipeTobacco
“Food” was meant to be “folks”….. damnable autocorrect.
I haven't use garbage service.
That's some hard core ice! I'm lucky my trash doesn't come till 10 or after -- I don't like leaving it out overnight, either.
Ouch! My daughter had that iced up windshield problem in Chicago.
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