Pluggers by Rick McKee for August 24, 2021

Pluggers have a fear of being thrown out…

I don’t have that fear; I live at an apartment complex which has communal dumpsters. It’s my parents’ garbage day that the parents’ house is at times another factor.

I’ll bet this is especially a fear in places where there are two garbage days-trash proper and recyclables. If you miss one particular garbage day you have to wait until that particular garbage day comes around again (and hope to heck that your barrel has the space required to do that).

We worry more about missing recycling day. Between composting and recycle, there’s not that much trash.

They also gotta get their mail, pronto!

That IS a big deal. That and picking up the dog’s poop. It’s either those important jobs or try for a Walmart Greeter job.

Tis all in a Pluggers training ! Get Er Done !

Don’t we all………

No matter where I’ve lived, my trash pick-up is early morning and my mail delivery late afternoon, never the reverse. But I guess those are First World problems.

Fitting, I actually missed garbage day this week. Remembered it when I heard the trucks go by. Too late by then.

Two of my neighbors (all of us are in our 70’s) put their cans out the day before, in the afternoon.

We have curbside pickup, weekly, plus recycle collection, so I leave the bins at the end of my driveway and fill as needed.

I almost missed trash pickup once. The company had shifted our area from Friday to Thursday, but on the evening dog walk Wed. I noticed people had their bins out. Checked my email and the company had sent out a notice at 4 pm Wed.

We have private garbage haulers. I picked the one that picked up on Thursday rather than Friday. That way I can put the bins away before the weekend if we go out of town. I don’t want my neighbors to have to look at the sitting at the end of the driveway all weekend.

Pluggers depicted in this strip all seem overweight and even morbidly obese and in fear of something.

It’s only a problem for me when we are on the early pick up schedule part of the route.

With pickup only every other week, we can miss a time or two and still be okay. Recycle as much as possible. Compost what we can. Don’t just automatically throw something into the garbage.

They fear the wrath of the little woman..

Actually, thanks for the reminder. Today is the day. Rolling a can to curb in my pajamas. The neighbors wonder about my.

Yes today is the day. I put the trash can hauler into the receiver and drive it 800 feet to the end of the driveway, and drive back uphill to the house.

Trash pick-ups have been erratic recently here in Indy (where less than half the population of this hyper-GOP enclave STILL remain unvaxxed!). I put this up to increased trash volume and crew shortages due to COVID and other problems. Indeed, delivery of the tents and ice storage equipment for the recent parish festival were delayed due to COVID quarantines of the delivery crews.

We by-pass that by taking the trash to the dump ourselves. Costs less and eliminates carrying (pushing) a heavy trash can down our long driveway. Also gets me out of the house for an adventure! LOL!

My city changed services to save a few bucks and now “trash day” is only a vague estimate of when it will actually get picked up

Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash by Edward Humes is an excellent book on our growing trash problem. The average American throws out 102 tons of garbage during his lifetime — $50 billion worth of goods get hauled to the curb each year. And it all has to go somewhere.

A few years ago the city converted to 96 gallon trash and recycling containers provided by them. They now use single-man trucks with a lift for emptying said containers. Trash collection is weekly, and recycling is biweekly. Living alone I could go a month or more before ‘having’ to haul them to the curb.

Pickups are Monday am & Thursday am for regular garbage, Tuesday am for recycling (paper and, cans, glass, #1/#2 plastics only), and Wednesday “trash” (as opposed to garbage) and varies – spring thru fall it is garden items (leaves and grass), in January it is Christmas trees (“all decorations must be removed”). Call for pickup or go to special drop off sessions in different places for electronics & related items

In normal times I would put kitchen/downstairs bathroom garbage out on Sunday nights and office/upstairs garbage out on Wednesday nights. Currently putting out kitchen on Sunday nights & the rest if the pails fill as needed.

When we first moved in we had “perimeter pickup”. This was apparently a hold over from when the area had private pickup instead of township sanitation. If the garbage can was visible from the street they would come up the driveway and empty it – leaving can where it was. They got rid of this at some point since we moved in (forget when) and now garbage must to go the curb. I put it out in the plastic bag it has been collected in – no more cans or lids tossed/left in the middle of the 4 lane main road we live on. I had been putting the cans, jars, bottles, in whatever cardboard boxes I had that were going out with the paper anyway and putting the tied papers under the box – everything gone, nothing to bring back to the house – and we had lost 2 township recycling boxes over the decades due to them being left in the street and getting hit by cars – problem solved.

These days I put out kitchen garbage on Sunday nights & if any other will add it to same. Recycling cans, etc going in the large pail they gave us a couple a years ago for same, every couple of months (don’t use a lot – in normal times 4 cans a week was about it most weeks) and the few papers we have (temporarily reading online version of newspaper which I hate, but don’t want to touch it and read it on kitchen table (which is where normally read it).