Trashy Story Re: Garbage. Bin it, They say, but I Refuse!

Some may suggest to bin this story because it’s absolute trash, but I refuse! I demand to share how garbage collection works over here.


Strange subject I know, but it fascinates me because for my entire life, I’ve had a garbage can in the garage or a bin around the side of the house, but over here it works completely different, and it doesn’t matter if you live in a cottage, apartments or detached homes.

Here, it’s all about the communal collection of your garbage. 


When I first got here, I lived in an apartment, so me and my first bag of trash rode the elevator down to the basement and I walked over to the Cuarto de basura, but the door to the trash room was locked.


Absolute garbage, I said, looking down at the little, forlorn bag in my hand. What do I do now? I’d seen four huge bins outside, like skips you might see at a construction site, so was that where I was supposed to throw the trash?

 Me and the bag skulked our way up the third floor, which is the ground level and I walked down the entrance, crossed the road, looked left and right, and not seeing anyone, I grabbed the lid of the green container, pushed it up, which was a bit gross, lobbed in the bag—bye friend— and let the lid silently close like a coffin. (Well, it was the dead of night.)

(The clean up guys even arrange to have all the stuff next to the containers picked up, too!)

Not knowing anyone, I still wasn’t sure I’d done the right thing, so over the next couple of days, I snuck glances out of my sixth-floor vantage point and watched as other people from the complex walked over, the lid opened automatically—how did they do that??—and then deposited their trash in the various containers.


Ok, so I’m not doing anything wrong, and that was good to know, but now I had to investigate more. The next day, I walked over to the green one. With some garbage strewn around, it was a bit messy, but I saw it had a metal foot-pedaly bar thing, and when I stomped on it, the lid opened. One mystery solved!

There was also three other containers, yellow for plastics, another green one for cardboard and yet another green one, but this was bell-shaped and that’s were all the bottles and glasses went.

Someone had left part of a couch next to the glass container and I was thinking, ah crap that’s going to be there for weeks, but it was gone the next morning and when I went over that afternoon, all the strewn trash was gone, too. It was—and continues to be—so impressive that the garbage guys who work in the very late evenings dump the respective containers into the trash truck, but if there’s something oversized to be gotten, someone in a flatbed or box van is called and the thing is got.

And, it’s seven days a week.

Fantastic service and truly a community service that needs to be recognized more!

It may not be pretty, but we'd be lost without garbage containers -- and the hard-working men and women who do the dirty work on our behalf!