My Perfect Trash Collection Schedule Was Ruined And Other Garbage Complaints

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for a nice, fresh edition of The Gripe Report!

Unfortunately, this one doesn’t smell too fresh, because this week we’re talking trash.

Last year, around this time, my now-wife and I were gearing up for a big life change.

Gone were the days of apartment life. We were moving on to a rented townhouse in an actual, honest-to-goodness suburban neighborhood life.

Now, I grew up in the suburbs, but there was a time in my life when I thought I wanted to live in the city, as I saw on Seinfeld or any other ’90s sitcom. 

Then I grew up and realized, f–k that, the suburbs are for me.

Have a gripe? Send it in!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com

So, I’ve been digging true suburban living for the last year, but with that comes some battles, and one of those has to do with the trash situation.

Back in the apartment, they offered “trash valet” services. That sounds fancy, but it just means you left a bag of trash outside your door in the evening, and the maintenance guy picked it up, threw it in the back of his pickup truck, and then drove it to the dumpster.

In the ‘burbs? It’s all up to me, seeing as I’m the self-appointed Trash Czar in our household.

So, here are some of my biggest, trashiest complaints…

Different Days For Trash And Recycling

For the first year, 10 months or so that my wife and I lived in our current place, we had the kind of trash schedule that most people can only dream of.

Trash and recycling are both on Monday.

It was bliss. Sunday night, I would cart both wheelie-bins out to the curb, give them a pat on the lid, and then go back inside.

However, late last year, we received the tragic news that trash was moving to Tuesdays.

I was devastated. This made trash a multi-day endeavor and requires me to remember which day is which every single week.

Is it easy? Yes.

Should I have to do it? No.

I wish they would’ve just said, “Meh, we don’t recycle anymore; everyone knows it’s kind of a scam,” and just left trash on Mondays, but nooooooo…

It just stings because I knew how great life was when they were on the same day. Maybe someday the county will come to its senses and give the people what they want.

And by people, I mostly mean me.

Garbage Men’s Inability To Maintain Any Consistent Schedule

On top of the days of the week situation, the garbage men who drop by my neighborhood are incapable of keeping any kind of consistent schedule.

Some weeks, they don’t empty the cans until the sun is setting.

Other weeks, they’ve got my entire street cleared before the sun is even up.

It never fails that the weeks they’re extremely early are the ones when I forget to put the trash out the night before.

Then I get the horrible experience of waking up to the sound of trash getting dumped into the back of the truck, realize my mistake, and then have to go tearing downstairs, out the back door, and through the garage, all while still wearing my sleeping shirt and pants.

I don’t call them pajamas because they really are just an old pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt.

All I’m asking for is some consistency. Give me a cable guy-style four-hour time frame, and I’m happy.

It’s no secret that garbage funk is a real problem. (Getty Images) 

The Funk Situation 

Another thing that I don’t like about trash is the funk situation, which is also what I would call my funk band if I had one.

We have to keep our cans in the garage because the HOA dictates they can’t be in the driveway, and I can’t (read: don’t want to) cart them through the garage and onto our back patio.

Therefore, garage it is.

But the problem with trash is that it brings more funk than Bootsy Collins, and when you’ve got your car parked in there, the last thing you want is your interior getting funkified.

That’s why there’s always this math and strategic game-planning I have to do regarding when I throw certain things away. 

Take, for instance, the little mini-trashcan where we keep the dog’s poop.

I try to empty that after I put the trash out at the curb, but sometimes (I don’t know if our dog is DoorDash-ing Taco Bell while we’re away or what) he fills it up early.

Then I have to decide if we can deal with two or three days of a big bag of crap sitting in the garage, something that is treacherous in the heat of summer.

This is also an issue with some kitchen waste. I remember one time we threw out the ends of Brussels sprouts — not even the entire thing! — and that brought the funk like… well, like Bootsy Collins.

Sometimes I have to make a call about whether we want that funk in the kitchen or garage, and the answer is always garage, but that doesn’t make getting into a car that smells ever-so-slightly like rotting brussels stink.

Cutting Up Boxes

It’s not that I dislike the act of carving up and flattening cardboard boxes. In fact, there was a time in my life when I enjoyed it.

That time was when I was home from college, working at a department store. Not in the department store, I worked in the tent they had set up in the parking lot, where they stashed all the crap they couldn’t fit in the store.

One of my ways to take a breather and not have to deal with customers was to volunteer to stand behind the tent and flatten boxes.

But now that I have a million other things to do, I hate wasting time flattening the boxes so they’re not spilling out into the alley when I take the trash out.

I blame Amazon for this. Climate Pledge, my ass.

A shocking percentage of what we throw out is Amazon packages, so nice job saving the environment by filling landfills to the brim.

If you meet the Amazon driver at the door, you should be given thirty seconds to open the box, remove the guitar strings and Airfix model of a Bugatti Chiron you ordered, and give it back to the driver, who can take it back to the distribution center to be reused.

Or he could just chuck it out of the van in someone else’s neighborhood. I really don’t care, so long as I don’t have to stand there and break them all down at the end of the week.

Neighbor’s Absurdly Huge Trash Piles

Now, I just complained about my trash hassles, so I know everyone else has their own trash headaches.

Sometimes, you wind up with so many boxes you don’t have any clue what to do with them, but don’t be like my neighbor and build a Great Sphynx-sized cardboard monument made of spent Amazon, television, and what other boxes this douche had lying around, and put it out in the alley.

I know an alley doesn’t get the same level of respect as a street does, but let me tell you, as far as alleys go, this is a very nice one.

On top of it, this guy lives at the end of the alley, meaning his leaning tower of Pizza Hut Boxes was visible from the main street.

I understand as well as anyone how much cutting down boxes sucks, but if you refuse to do it, put the crap out back on the day of trash pick up.

Not several days earlier, as was this fella’s move.

Consider your neighbors and don’t leave enough boxes sitting out to build a very cool fort, unless, of course, you plan to let them use them to make a very cool fort.

…

That’s it for this week’s Gripe Report. Be sure to report back here next week for more!

In the meantime, send in your best gripes for future editions!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com