Garbage mystery solved
Mystery solved. Last week I recounted how on regular garbage pick up day, our one sack of garbage had spawned three more. Each was smaller, but tucked neatly around the larger bag like puppies around their mother.
I noticed this same event one morning last March.
I wrote, “It takes a lot of nerve and sneakiness to dump your trash on someone else’s curb. We pay for the service and I don’t want my neighbors thinking my wife and I generate all that refuse. We aren’t that wasteful.’
Now I get to eat a heaping plate full of crow, dirt and humble pie with egg all over my embarrassedly red face.
My phantom garbage dumper is no phantom anymore.
I learned that in an early morning phone call from one of my neighbors. “That’s my garbage,’ the neighbor said. “And I pay my garbage bill,’ my neighbor added.
So how did the neighbor’s trash get to my side of the street?
Simple. And the explanation is logical, rational and reasonable.
It seems our sanitation crew sends out an advance man who consolidates the bags lining both sides of the street, my neighbor explained. “I think they do that for efficiency,’ my neighbor added.
Bryan, who also read the column, called me at the office later the same day and confirmed that process. The sanitation workers do the same thing in his neighborhood.
Which explains quite a lot.
Normally, our city sanitation workers gather up the trash before I leave for work. So, I rarely see how much refuse awaits collection. But every now and then I make it out the door before they haul the stuff away. Then, I notice in front of several houses what seems to be an inordinately huge number of garbage bags, which leads me to think that some of my neighbors must be consummate wasters. I don’t notice that there are no bags in front of some of the other homes along our street, probably because that early in the day it would be very unlikely that I’d notice an elephant sitting on the hood of my car.
My neighbor kindly pointed that out to me. No, not about the elephant on my car but about the dearth of debris in front of some of the homes, once more, kindly, pointing out the city sanitation workers’ program of efficiency.
While apologizing to my neighbor, I was thankful I didn’t sort through the stuff to see if there was a discarded envelope with a name and address on it. And thankful that my little mystery was solved.
I got some other helpful responses. One caller suggested putting out a camera with a motion sensor to snap a photo. Another recalled how people used to dump their garbage on the farm she and her late husband owned. Her husband got to so fed up he sifted through the stuff and, if he found a name and address, promptly returned the garbage to its rightful owner.
I even got a letter. Leroy took the time to write me and spend 39 cents chiding me to “lighten up.” He added, “I’m sure that some family’s savings of garbage pickup cost won’t raise their standards from minced ham to porterhouse steak. Everyone, well everyone but you, obviously forgets to put out their garbage once in a while … Now what do you do? Leave it there till next week so the dogs will have fun scattering it over the entire neighborhood? Put it back in the basement to stink up the house?’
He kindly offered his address to me as an alternative dumpsite if I should ever forget to put out our trash.
Thanks. Leroy. Oh, and if you should find some extra bags in front of your house, don’t bother looking for any discarded mail. I will be sure to remove it first. But you might find a porterhouse steak wrapper.
Have a good day.
James Pletcher Jr. is business editor of the Herald-Standard. He can be reached at 724-439-7571 or by e-mail at jpletcher@heraldstandard.com