Trash Talk

This is the first weekend since we arrived that we don't have some sort of trip, errand, or activity planned. The only thing on the agenda is a trip to the recycling center because, amazingly, Maryport doesn't have a curbside recycling program.

What's the deal with these guys and trash? Coming from a very environmentally-conscious city like Fort Collins, it’s a little shocking to see the way that people casually throw their trash on the ground in public areas. I saw an episode of Mad Men once where the Draper family goes for a picnic in a really beautiful spot. When they’re finished they take a moment to admire the scenery. Then, they shake the blanket out onto the ground, leaving behind all of the paper plates, cups, napkins, and trash. I remember being totally shocked by that. The show is set in the sixties, and I couldn’t imagine that we ever lived in a time where it was considered ok to do something like that.

Apparently, Maryport is stuck in the sixties.

But I shouldn’t get down on Maryport. The way trash is handled out here seems across the board very different from what we’re used to in the US. In the Carslile train station, for example, there were no garbage cans anywhere. They just don’t exist. Instead, the preferred way of dealing with trash seems to be to hire someone to come around every few hours and pick the trash up off of the ground. It’s so weird!

We're also having a hard time with the trash bins at our house. Ever since we moved in, we've been trying to get the landlord to set us up with our own outside trash bin. He hasn't made any progress, which is frustrating. As is, we have to share a small trash bin (you know, the tall plastic kind that you drag to the curb for the garbage man) with all of the other tenants in the building. That means that we have to share a trash bin with three other apartments.

The bin itself is about 2/3 the size of the bin that we had all to ourselves in Colorado. Needless to say, the trash container fills up very quickly.The garbage man won't take away any bags that aren't in the bin, so we always end up stuck with a bunch of extra garbage at the end of the week that didn't make it into the trash pickup. This was especially problematic when we first moved in and had to do a massive cleanout of the cabinets and drawers. (Remember the terrible hoarding prolem?) For the first few weeks, we had bags and bags of garbage spread out across the kitchen with no place to put them.

On the up side, we finally discovered that there's a local dump that will take all of our extra trash, and has a good recycling program. All of that is free of charge, as long as you’re willing to load your car up with garbage. Of course, that’s what we do every weekend. Matt and I are physically incapable of throwing an aluminum can in the garbage. It’s painful to even try.