On Trash Takes

Recently, I was given the opportunity to housesit for a very nice family with a wonderfully sweet old dog. I’ve made my opinions about house sitting very clear, but if you skipped that one or have somehow forgotten one of my unforgettable pieces…it’s great and I love it. This particular house happens to be located in one of the suburbs of Los Angeles that I haven’t spent much time in, so it was a wholly new experience. Whenever you get the chance to live somewhere new for a little while, take it! There are so many novel things: new restaurants to try, new local craft beers to drink, new places where the traffic is randomly horrible! But along with all these positive things, there are always negatives. And this time, the new thing that drove me up the wall was…the trash cans.

I know it’s crazy to write this. I know it’s crazy to spend as much time thinking about this as I already have. I know it’s crazy to feel as enraged as I do! But, I’m using all this insanity to check off another weekly essay, so it’s not all bad.

In the neighborhoods in Los Angeles that I’ve lived in (and that is quite a few: from the foothills of Pasadena to the beach front of Marina del Rey and everywhere in between) there is a common pattern to the trash cans that one must wheel out to the curb at 11:30 at night because they forgot to earlier in the day, even when they set multiple phone reminders.

The yard waste can is green. Grass clippings are green. Leaves are green (at least until they turn brown and mushy and gross). Being ecologically conscious is called being “Green”. This, to me, makes perfect sense.

The recycling bin is blue. Captain Planet is blue. This is how it is and how it should be. I recognize that in some places there are multiple different recycling bins for bottles, cans, paper products, etc. That is fantastic and good for the planet, I hope. But for rolling bins, blue is recycling.

The trash bin is black or grey. You put all the nastiest stuff in here. Rotten vegetables that you promised yourself you would cook but then you just kept ordering pizzas because you’re garbage and belong in the garbage grey or black can for nasty trash. Hair that you pull out of the drain that makes you gag when you see it. The paper towels full of squished spiders that you had to call your girlfriend into the room to take care of. This makes sense! Trust me!

So, when I am living in a new place, and I take out the trash and I see that the grey can is for YARD WASTE, while the green can is for RECYCLING, and the blue can is for TRASH…I start to feel like I’m taking crazy pills, like I’ve become unmoored from reality and am floating in a universe where the red light means go and the green light means get out of your car and salsa dance!

I know this is the most, “old man yelling at a cloud” post yet…and yet, I feel like I am right and this particular cloud needs to be yelled at.

What do you think? What color should trash cans be? Should I relax and just let cans be cans?