garbage regime

Our household has entered a new garbage regime, that is, a protocol for collecting the trash.

This was implemented for single-family residences in our city about four years ago, but our townhouse complex counts as a multi-dwelling unit like an apartment block, and our conversion didn't take place until last week. A flatbed truck followed the garbage truck around and swapped out our old garbage can for a new split one: one part garbage, one part food scraps.

So now we have to keep food scraps separately. Let's see, we keep two trash baskets in the kitchen/dining room, and the one under the sink gets the food scraps already, partly because that's where most of them are generated while cooking, and partly because Tybalt is wont to rummage around in the other trash basket if he smells anything interesting in there, often causing untold chaos if he knocks it over.

So all we have to do is remember not to put anything else in the under-sink trash. Anything not food that's contaminated by food or would otherwise smell interesting to Tybalt has to go into a third trash basket, which has a lid so we can keep it outside with the garbage and recycle cans. It has to go outside since we discovered long ago that the lid wasn't enough to keep Tybalt out.

Did I say "all we have to do"? No, it also emerges that they want the food scraps in a clear bag, so that they can see what's in there, and that the bag be sealed with a tie. It turns out that if you order "clear trash bags" from Amazon, they won't necessarily be clear. It took two tries before I got something that was both the right clarity and the right size, and then I had to order the ties separately.

And now I've just finished explaining all of this to our biweekly cleaning lady. She's sharp; she shouldn't have any difficulty remembering all this. We live in hopeful worship of our new trash masters.