The Art of Recycling the yellow lidded bin on time.

Almost There

Do you find it confusing too? We have two rubbish bins. The Red-lidded one gets collected weekly on Thursday. The Yellow-lidded fortnightly, also on Thursday. You can never go wrong with the red one. I simply put it out each Wednesday at the front on the much heralded ‘nature strip’.

This nature strip is an Australian invention as is the Hill’s Hoist. Both quintessentially Australian as a prawn on a barbeque during a boozy summer’s afternoon quaffing from a Coolabah Riesling wine-cask. The nature strip fulfils two main needs.
1. For dogs to defecate on.
2. For residents to drop their unwanted and over-bought consumables, mainly in the form of excess mattresses or bright-blue sagging Nights-and-Day sofas.

The dog defecators use the nature strip mainly at night.They are the night stalkers. They walk their dogs without the aid of a plastic bag to pick up or catch the dog’s load, and simply allow the nature strip to get used as a toilet under the cover of darkness. I would not be surprised if the walkers themselves at times follow the lead of their dogs and do the same! I am suspicious of the look of some of those turds. I am no expert, but even so.., they don’t look very doggy to me.

The third one is of course to put our full bins out on for the local Shire Council to collect. The confusion lies in remembering the collection of the yellow lidded recycling bin. We know that fortnightly means once every two weeks. Yesterday afternoon I put out both. I had not given much thought about the Yellow bin but assumed it was time. It was very full! The Christmas festivities and associated New Year gaiety are often trying times for the Yellow bin. The grandchildren and their presents caused much refuse. Paper wrappings, boxes and soft drink bottles. We do allow some sugar intake for the grandkids during the Christmas holidays. 😉 Hence the plastic bottles. However, we also stock up on lots of bananas and mangoes for balance. The glass bottles, of which there were many, used to contain lovely Shiraz or mouth watering Pinot-Gris.

I often am the first one to put out the bins. And so it was yesterday. It seems to encourage others to do the same. By late afternoon an army of residents were diligently putting them out.There were rows and rows of both Red and Yellow bins festooning the ‘nature strip.’ Imagine this morning discovering that the Red bin had been emptied but not the Yellow one.
Did I have my dates wrong? It was just as well that no-one noticed it was me who, as a result of putting the Yellow bin out first, encouraged all the others to follow suit. A bit like the pied piper.

It means that many residents now have to drag to Yellow one back inside. The yellow bins are really much bigger and when loaded very heavy. (One could almost live in one.) Anyway, I feel a bit foolish now. My over-concern is punishing innocent people.

It’s not a good start of the year! Is it?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

17 Responses to “The Art of Recycling the yellow lidded bin on time.”

  1. Marianne Memoirs Says:

    Reality – Wait. This is better. ! REALITY !

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Yvonne Says:

    It’s one of those First World problems, Gerard!

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Big M Says:

    I too have got overexcited with bins. It’s like a disease or affliction. One walks the walk of shame, with overflowing yellow bin in tow. Enough material for psychiatric research. How many assaulted their partners after a wrongly deployed bin?

    Liked by 1 person

    • gerard oosterman Says:

      Yes, I have to contain myself peeking into other people’s yellow bins. I bet there would be a lot there, Big M.
      Yes, DV peaks during yellow bin days. It is well known and during counselling the yellow bin is often mentioned.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Big M Says:

        We also have a green bin on the alternate weeks, for garden waste. These can also be a cause of civil,unrest, with fights erupting over clandestine disposal into another’s green bin.

        Liked by 1 person

      • gerard oosterman Says:

        Don’t get me going on the green bins, Big M.
        A contentious issue amongst town-house owners. The green bins are excluded from shared housing complexes in Bowral. The reason seems to be that shared houses don’t really have much greenery. We are more into concrete, bitumen drive-ways and zinc-alume garage doors.
        If any greenery dares to show itself, it soon gets pulled out or stolen and ends up in green bins next door.
        I just heard the rumble of a neighbour ( a good one) dragging back his full yellow bin.

        Liked by 1 person

  4. auntyuta Says:

    One of our neighbours always takes out lots of bins early on Thursday morning for collection on Friday morning, that is he collects all the bins of the single women residents, presumably thinking that elderly women are a bit too weak to roll our the binnies. As soon as the bins get emptied on Friday morning, he is out like a flash to take every bin back to their owners. When Peter does not notice the council truck as to rush out immediately to collect his bin, Stan or John (another male neighbour) have already collected Peter’s bin and placed it in front of his gate!
    Anyhow we knew that this week it is the green bin’s turn. Since we have been away and only returned last Tuesday, there was hardly any garden refuse in our green bin. However a lot of things that needed cutting had grown during our absence. As soon as today’s rain had stopped a bit, both Peter and I went to our backyard to do a bit of work to fill the green bin.
    Both the small red bin and the large green bin Peter is going to wheel out later at night. In our freezer are several bags with leftover Christmas meaty things and bones. These bags go in our red bin late in the day so these meat things are not going to smell too much.
    Our yellow bin is waiting for next week to be brought out. It’s still full of Christmas stuff because we had left for Melbourne soon after Christmas. We had not bothered to ask the neighbour to take our bin out. But it does not matter. The recycling of paper and bottles can wait for another week.

    Liked by 2 people

    • gerard oosterman Says:

      Thank you, dear Uta. A great and considered reply.
      I don’t know the etiquette or rules of bin moving in shared housing complexes.

      I think you live in a much more neighbourly and friendlier housing set up. We too sometimes take in our neighbour’s bins and they do the same. Perhaps the single women in your neck of the woods are widows and their partners have passed away.

      However, the single women here are bitter divorcees and their husbands very much alive and kicking. ( some more alive than before) Who knows? I am not going to move bins for those that have stolen our beloved cyclamen.

      The level of forgiveness for that would be beyond our capacity or goodwill. This over eighty year old resident only last week pulled out plants that we had lovingly planted. There were six plants. We did not react this time, not wanting to give her the pleasure. It isn’t easy. Giving oxygen to the antagonists never works.

      This woman has a very large chin. I often wondered how it would have been for her husband to wake up next to this angry huge chin jutting above the blanket. It would not have been easy.

      He was last seen running away clambering over Mount Gibraltar towards Picton. That was over forty years ago.

      She has four children and numerous grandchildren. Do you think we should try and make amends and move her bins or should we just ignore her?

      Ageing does not necessarily increase benevolence. In this woman spite and reprisal has hardened.

      Liked by 1 person

  5. shoreacres Says:

    I’m sorry, Gerard. I just can’t keep myself from saying, “Bin there, done that!”

    We have a service that picks up trash at our door, Monday through Friday, from 8-10 a.m. The only rules? No more trash than will fit in the bin, no bagged trash outside the bin, and take the danged thing inside once emptied. The variety of ways people can break the rules is astounding — and the ways others have of encouraging keeping the rules is pretty interesting, too.

    Liked by 1 person

    • gerard oosterman Says:

      Yes, Linda. True, peace can only come about if people are willing to live and work in the kitchens of give and take. Compromise is often the best solution.
      Car parking and bin rules are often causes for great upheavals leading to catastrophic personal relationships.
      My half hour stint as secretary for our Body Corporate is still resonating through our community. Jaws and fists remain firmly clenched by some.
      We remain calm, collected and relaxed. It is the only way.

      Like

  6. jennypellett Says:

    On the contrary, I think it would be fun to confuse the neighbours with the wrong coloured bin. I think I’d be tempted to do it on purpose. We have fortnightly collections – recycling one week, general rubbish the next. Also a small container for food scraps. Thankfully no nature strip – just a suitably high hedge.

    Liked by 1 person

    • gerard oosterman Says:

      The odd thing is Jenny that we all have our own bins. Yet each bin looks the same apart from size and coloured lids. Yet the individual have marked their bins with house numbers, defending ownership to the death.
      Talking about deaths. It is not unusual for crimes to be committed with the involvement of bins. Often one reads about murder weapons or items of bloodied clothing to have been dumped in bins. It gets worse, last week a body was discovered in a bin. ( a green one). The Daily Telegraph had a photo of the bin which was shown by a large arrow pointing the bin out on a nature strip.

      Liked by 1 person

  7. kaytisweetlandrasmussen83 Says:

    We have a bit of confusion over the blue or the green. Do recently expired flowers go into the garden waste, or do they qualify as trash? The grey bin leaves no doubt, as they ask for material fit for recycling. Everything comes on Wednesday morning providing it isn’t a holiday, at which time they leave a telephone message telling you they are coming on a different day. Keeps you on your toes.

    Liked by 1 person

    • gerard oosterman Says:

      Yes, I suppose the bin issues are well organized in the US. I wonder if Trump will try and stigmatize the use of the grey re-cycling bins or even ban them seeing he isn’t all that convinced of climate change. We shall wait and see till after the 21 of Jan.
      The residents in our complex would all have received their water bills, yestrday. Another wave of excitement rippling through our community.

      Like

  8. kaytisweetlandrasmussen83 Says:

    Yes, we have received notices from both water and gas and electric who need to pad their pockets a little more.

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment