Garbage Gripes

I was just thinking about the pros and cons of living out in the suburbs of DC instead of the actual city. I came up with a lot of reasons why I miss DC, mostly relating to the ease in which I was able to stumble home from the bar when it suited me...

When I decided to migrate to the 'burbs, I had assumed that domestic activities (logistics) would be easier. For instance, I never have to fight for a parking space on my street, there's always a spot right in front of my house...glorious! I had also assumed that garbage pickup would be a breeze - that all the trash and refuse from the week would be magically whisked away in a clean and timely manner. On this point, I was dead wrong.

Let me start off by saying that Montgomery County has some of the pickiest trash collectors i've ever dealt with. I figured if I (or my housemates as the case has been lately) are responsible enough to get the trash out to the curb on time; the garbage collectors would hold up their end of the bargain and haul it away. Then came the first notice...

Affixed to the garbage can one morning was a huge orange sticker stating that our trash can was too heavy to empty. On a seperate occasion, there were too many cans in our recycling bin and it was left out in the street to greet us when we arrived home...still full of cans. Maybe this is protocol around here, but i've never seen anything like it. I can understand if we were trying to throw away appliances, or dangerous items...but this is just normal trash!

I'm researching this matter further, and I came across a website dedicated to the "do's and dont's" of trash removal for Montgomery County; here's my favorite example:

"Unacceptable Materials include: human or animal fecal or uriniferous matter, infectious wastes, dead animals"

Note: Uriniferous is my new favorite word - and funny enough, they never refused to pick up the steaming piles of dog crap that we lovingly placed at the bottom of the trash bags.

Anyhow, I guess the point of this whole rant is the fact that now the garbage disposal companies are looking to disrupt normal pickups because of the rising cost in diesal fuel. Rising fuel prices is something I can certainly understand, but I honestly don't know what we're going to do with all this trash that they're not going to collect. They only pick up about half of it as it is.

Now, if we could just find a way to convert the steaming piles of dog crap into a renewable source of fuel for these folks, maybe all our problems would be solved. I'll just go ahead and consult Al Gore on this matter.