No more trash chute

For the last three years while in the Oaks Embassy apartments, trash takeout was a short walk on our floor to the trash chute. For some twisted reason, I liked the sound of that small bag of garbage whooshing down the many floors to the bottom. It was easy. It was convenient.

Not that we're back in our house on Tomsey, we must get used to a new ritual, to say nothing about keeping track of the rhythm. Trash goes out in the red bin weekly on Tuesday. Recyclables go out fortnightly (every two weeks) in the larger yellow bin, also on Tuesday. Compostable material goes out in the green bin (which we must order) every fortnight but on Monday. At least it goes out on the same week as the yellow bin.

We live on the north edge of the purple zone.

The bins must be placed in particular places along the curb. If not in the correct location, they don't get emptied as we found during the first week trash pick-up.

We also had a problem with the yellow recycling bin the first few weeks. We were getting farther and farther behind with the removal of our moving and furniture boxes not to mention the wine and beer bottles. We had cardboard jam stuffed into the bin and still had piles of cardboard on the floor of the garage. Curiously, they still collect glass in Australia.

CJ had stuffed the yellow bin full of cardboard. We have trucks with robotic arms. The truck pulls up, the arm reaches out, grabs the bin, lifts it over the truck and dumps it. There must be some sort of weight sensor on the robotic arm because sometimes the arm gives the bin a shake or two and sometimes it does not. Because the cardboard was wedged in, the bin only got half emptied. 

We live at the edge of the purple and blue trash collection zones (see map above). James taught us a neat trick. If we need an extra pickup, we only need walk less than 200 feet to Carrington St. and we  get the bins emptied on Thursday during the blue zone trash removal.

Carol noticed something interesting. When last we lived here, someone pinched (stole for you Americans) one of our bins. We had to pay for replacement. Our bins are now conspicuously marked with our address. Carol realized the bins were marked in HER HANDWRITING. These are our original bins from 2008. Now she must get white paint good for plastic to mark the new green bin and touch up the others.