Last week, early in the morning, we heard a horrible screeching noise as our garbage was being picked up. I worried that it was our regular garbage cart, which was full of construction debris from our downstairs bathroom floor, coming apart under its weight. As it turned out, it was merely the sound of one of the wheels on our recycling cart being brutally torn off.
I called for a replacement, but for a week, I had to put a box in place of the recycling cart, because it couldn’t be wheeled back to its regular spot by the kitchen without wheels. It appears we were far from the only people to get our carts mangled last week. We’d seen another cart with a missing wheel on our street, and this morning, I saw many new carts being delivered in exchange for mangled, twisted cans. We were actually one of the lucky ones when it came to the great recycling cart massacre of 2007, since we just needed a new wheel put on.
Our city council just enacted a huge 30% increase in garbage rates, in order to pay a new garbage collection company, which is not the one that was involved in a payola scandal with our former mayor, and which had been collecting our garbage up to now. Personally, I’d put up with the corruption for the lower rate, ’cause scandal or not, my garbage gets taken away. I think the corrupt, now ousted garbage collection company, decided to get its revenge by mangling recycling carts on their last assignment. Unfortunately, I think the only people who cared were us homeowners who are already getting ripped by the high rates.