The perils of Recycling while Poor
After locating the local SARCAN[1] sometime last week, I finally had a day off that I could start to haul the few dozen black garbage(0.8m^2?) and white safeway(.2m^2?)bags in for recycling. It was a nice warm day, with overcast sky, and a cool breeze, and I thought today would be a nice day to get some fresh air, do my part for maenkind, etc etc. What I did not really take into account was the Weather Network applet on meirionwen's desktop had a wind warning for our area. 90km/h windspeed. So I took 3 black garbage bags, and 4 white garbage bags, and meirionwen took 2 black garbage backs(one of which was from the CSSS, and we set off to travel, oh, the 1.5ish km parallel to the busiest street(traffic wise) in Regina. We dug up a wheelbarrow in the garage, that matt's great uncle or whoever used to have. It still worked; and this enabled the two of us to carry around 4 people worth of these bags. This would have normally been a good idea, but unfortunately today it did not work to our advantage, really.
We got around halfway through Albert, right beside about the credit union building. When then wind picked up, and snatched 2 of 3 bags that eventually blew away. They were filled with tin cans and plastic milk cartons, and were exceptionally light, and small(being white safeway bags) and holes for the wind to get in. They moved faster than we could, and because of the speed of traffic moving the other way, within seconds, cars had hit all of the bags, and within around a minute(I tried to fish what I could out without being run over), almost all record of there ever being bags of recycling was gone. meirionwen's hat almost blew away, blowing straight off her head, and the wind was enough to lift the black garbage bags straight off the ground(nevermind that; my laptop was on the verge of blowing away!! And it's an old boat anchor!). One car had got a plastic bag stuck in their undercarriage and I offered to try to fish it out for them, which I did. Poor gal was dressed in a short skirt, trying to bend over without showing off to the world, in 90km/h wind. meirionwen and I were powerless to stop the wind from taking our bags and throwing them into oncoming traffic...and we spent multiple minutes just trying to hold down the mass of bags to keep from just blowing away. By around the train track underpass, the bags were starting to look ragged, and looked as though at any time they might dissintegrate, and some of the holes were leaking single tin cans, but we made it, with all of our black garbage bags and one of four white safeway bags of recycling to sarcan.
Now keep in mind, there is a huge sign in the sarcan building, saying TIN/ALUMINUM 0.10$. And what did they say? Oh we don't accept tin/aluminum food containers, those you have to throw in the bleu bins. What bleu bins?? "The ones by the malls" What malls? I know there are bleu bins in the south end of the city, but the Cornwall Centre mall(the downtown mall) does Not have said bleu bins, and the North end and east end malls are right out of the question. This means I'd have to walk around 3ish km to get to the bleu bin in the south end, and there's no way that the white safeway bags that are holding my recycling in this wind would last. So we took our tin, packed it tightly in my backpack(taking my laptop and Vector Calculus textbook and throwing it in the wheelbarrow) and wheeled home. meirionwen's ears were hurting from the wind, and both of us were very thirsty. I saw one of the cans that may have come from us; it was wedged in the centre of the busiest intersection in the city. I walk this path on my way to work; If it's still there when I go to work next I'll snap it up, but Somehow I doubt it will.
I don't feel too bad about littering; I am constantly picking other people's junk off the ground(just last week I picked up every piece of paper material from my house to the south end bleu bin-not a simple task), nor do I feel too bad for anyone who may have caused damage to their vehicle(I don't pity people with vehicles, period), which is probably pretty minimal anyway since they were disintegrated while I watching, almost instantaneously once they hit the middle of Albert. This is also a lesson; if those were human bodies they would have disintegrated just as easily if not more easily on Albert; Albert will chew you into a bloody pulp of nothing if you step out into it, I'm sure. But next time, and there will be a next time, I will secure my recycling with duct tape, or carry less, one or the other
[1] Saskatchewan recycling depot worked by the, uh, 'mentally and physically impaired'. Some parts of it are what I consider necessary parts of an industrial society, others are just plain sad.
We walked home with around 60$, around 5$ of which was CSSS money, and the whole thing took around an hour. Which isn't too bad. That money will go towards the internet bill for the house.