I have an ethical and logistic dilemma in my life: How does one get rid of garbage cans? Where I live, the local garbage company decided our old Home Depot cans would not work anymore, so they gave us these monstrosities, one for recycling, one for trash. They have more square feet than most bathrooms and barely fit in anyone’s garage, but that’s another issue. We are to use them, and everything must fit inside them, and the recyling has to go in the green and the trash in the blue or we will receive a visit from the garbage police.
Problem is now I’ve got all these old garbage cans in my garage as well, and I’m not sure what to do with them.
Have you ever tried to get rid of a garbage can? As a friend in Florida once pointed out to me, it’s next to impossible. The trash collection folks assume that’s your can. So they keep throwing it back. You put it out. They throw it back on the lawn. Week after week. Out, back. Out, back. It’s worse than trying to open those plastic container they put things in these days.
The second issue is that the old cans are plastic. Technically, they should be recycled. Does one then put an old garbage can in a recycling container? This seems odd, especially when you consider down the road somebody’s kids might be playing with a toy made of these old garbage cans. Not real pretty.
But, I have every expectation that if the old can is put in the new recycling bin, the trash folks will take it out and put it back on the lawn.
Out, back. Out, back. It’s almost Twilight Zonian.
It’s these kinds of things that keep me up at night. I’m kind of stumped.
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I'd put the old plastic ones in the recycling bin – just to see what happens. Either that or haul it to the recycling bins at schools and stuff it in there.
When I wanted to toss my garbage cans, I called my trash pickup company and told them I wanted them to take the cans. They marked it on my route and asked me to also put a note on the cans. That worked for me.
Simple solution. This scenario is precisely why God created car trunks and the innate human ability of illegal dumping into commercial dumpsters.
Doesn't The Beacon Journal have a dumpster out back??
mike, you're confused. That's just their dumpster for Terry Pluto's old columns.
Come to think of it, I would suggest the Plain Dealer's dumpster, but Pluto is already using it to recycle his old columns.
Put it next to your regular trash with a note attached saying – "This is Trash" or throw it in your neighbors yard