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Today, I'm going to talk about recycling. No, don't fall asleep. Since moving here, I've never been quite sure how to deal with the vast amount of rubbish that we generate because of the different rules about everything that are put down by the town of Brookline and the apartment building themselves, and currently we've got one cupboard with two entire bags of empty cans and bottles that I have no idea what to do with.
Usually, people can apply for a blue recycling box by going on a weekday between the hours of when you have to be in work and when you get out of work to a small shed several miles from any public transport. This box is collected by the dustmen along with the normal rubbish, a bit like the blue wheelie-bins that we have in Britain. Not having one of these or much of a way to get one, we used to put paper bags full of cans and bottles out along with the gigantic pile of black bags collected by the superintendent on rubbish day.
But a couple of months ago, everyone in our building received a very rude and badly-typed notice from the building owners saying, among other things like not stuffing entire pillows into the washing machines, never to put any recycling out on the pavement. This is because the city laws say not to have anything out on the pavement before 3pm or after 7am on the pickup day, so that it isn't blocking more than three sevenths of the width of the pavement, facing North, punishable by hanging, and they would get the blame for it if anyone did. So the options are to just throw things out (which I'd feel incredibly guilty about), or to drive to a recycling centre and dispose of them there - something that we can't really do regularly without having a car, seeing as the nearest one is three miles away.
I had a word about it with the superintendent's wife this morning, and it turns out that because the building's rubbish is handled by a private company, they can't get the normal city recycling service - instead, we have to just put it out with the regular black bags and hope that they do something sensible with it on the other end rather than chucking it into a landfill. It's no wonder that Americans are seen as wasteful - it's not their fault, it's because everything in the country conspires against you trying to recycle anything.
Usually, people can apply for a blue recycling box by going on a weekday between the hours of when you have to be in work and when you get out of work to a small shed several miles from any public transport. This box is collected by the dustmen along with the normal rubbish, a bit like the blue wheelie-bins that we have in Britain. Not having one of these or much of a way to get one, we used to put paper bags full of cans and bottles out along with the gigantic pile of black bags collected by the superintendent on rubbish day.
But a couple of months ago, everyone in our building received a very rude and badly-typed notice from the building owners saying, among other things like not stuffing entire pillows into the washing machines, never to put any recycling out on the pavement. This is because the city laws say not to have anything out on the pavement before 3pm or after 7am on the pickup day, so that it isn't blocking more than three sevenths of the width of the pavement, facing North, punishable by hanging, and they would get the blame for it if anyone did. So the options are to just throw things out (which I'd feel incredibly guilty about), or to drive to a recycling centre and dispose of them there - something that we can't really do regularly without having a car, seeing as the nearest one is three miles away.
I had a word about it with the superintendent's wife this morning, and it turns out that because the building's rubbish is handled by a private company, they can't get the normal city recycling service - instead, we have to just put it out with the regular black bags and hope that they do something sensible with it on the other end rather than chucking it into a landfill. It's no wonder that Americans are seen as wasteful - it's not their fault, it's because everything in the country conspires against you trying to recycle anything.
