More Trash Talk

On his evening constitutional Your Boulevardier noticed this overflowing refuse receptacle by the bus stop next to Safeway on Castro Valley Boulevard.

The Castro Valley Sanitary District will be contacted to inform them of the problem. None of the other trashcans on the Boulevard were similarly stuffed; one does not know if this one gets extra use, or if it was passed over in the last round (or two or seven) of collections.

And speaking of trash receptacles, the earlier post entitled "Yes We Can" about Castro Valley's new residential trashcans has attracted a better-than average number of comments. (Not that one would ever deign to call the esteemed and loyal Wudas "average.") Your Boulevardier is, of course, not an official of the Sanitary District so he cannot answer any of the fine questions posed by readers; however, some of them are addressed here.

And he will describe his own experience with the new cans (which, by the way, the District calls "carts," but Your Boulevardier does not).

The crew came through the Baywood District this last Tuesday delivering the new cans, and the delivery proved to be a strangely hypnotic operation. A flatbed trailer loaded with nested new cans was pulled along slowly by a truck. One worker stood on the moving trailer, putting wheels on each can and dropping it onto the street; another worker rolled one to each home. Another truck came through and collected the older garbage and recycling cans.

For reasons inexplicable, the pick-up vehicle left behind the old-style green-waste cans, even though the new ones for the same purpose had been delivered. As of today, three days later, the green can at Chez Boulevardier has still not been taken away, and Your Boulevardier is close to considering it a gift from the district for use around the yard. One can always use another sturdy trashcan with wheels.

Also of note: a surprising number of homes in the neighborhood have not yet rolled their new cans from the street and back to their yards. Perhaps they do not recognize them as theirs. Or perhaps the new cans are just too new and clean to put trash in. (Your Boulevardier admits that he can relate to this feeling.) Or maybe it's like a baby animal that has been touched by human hands: its mother rejects it because it does not smell right.