Research. Again.
Sep. 22nd, 2005 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
estepheiaCalifornia. Suburbs. Middle Class residential area. Trash cans. How many? What color? Recycling bins?
Here in Braunschweig it's like this: people have grey trash cans and green ones, the grey ones for ordinary trash, green ones for organic matter that's compostable. Some people have blue ones for paper. Glass, drinking cartons, plastic, Paper and tin cans have to be sorted into communal recycling containers. Now get this: some of the sorted trash then gets tossed together again and burnt - because the poplulation sorts more dilligently than our recycling industry can cope with. They have to add recyclable trash to the to-be-burnt trash because the latter is not flammable enough. Crazy.
Anyway, for the story I just need to paint a picture of great civic commitment. So the people in the house are pillars of the community. What would their trashcans look like? Xander uses them to take cover, but I'd also like them to make a statement about the house's owners, you know?
Thanks in advance. *beams*
PS: The last chapter of Four Fear is coming along nicely. Yay.
Here in Braunschweig it's like this: people have grey trash cans and green ones, the grey ones for ordinary trash, green ones for organic matter that's compostable. Some people have blue ones for paper. Glass, drinking cartons, plastic, Paper and tin cans have to be sorted into communal recycling containers. Now get this: some of the sorted trash then gets tossed together again and burnt - because the poplulation sorts more dilligently than our recycling industry can cope with. They have to add recyclable trash to the to-be-burnt trash because the latter is not flammable enough. Crazy.
Anyway, for the story I just need to paint a picture of great civic commitment. So the people in the house are pillars of the community. What would their trashcans look like? Xander uses them to take cover, but I'd also like them to make a statement about the house's owners, you know?
Thanks in advance. *beams*
PS: The last chapter of Four Fear is coming along nicely. Yay.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-22 02:30 pm (UTC)) for general trash; 1 big green toter for compostables; and 1 double-lidded toter that holds newspapers on one side and aluminum and plastic containers on the other. We used to use stackable plastic crates to sort the recycling; they switched us to the toters several years ago. Nobody has more than one toter of each type, and not everyone puts out every toter every week--we sometimes take a week or two to fill up the compostable and/or recyclable toter. In my town, we're allowed to put out extra cans of trash at no charge, but some nearby cities charge a lot extra if you need to do that.
Oh, we have another garbage-related custom that might be useful for you: We call it "Big Garbage Month." Twice a year, there's a month during which the garbage company will pick up old furniture, electronics, and other big things that don't fit in the toter. Of course, a lot of that stuff gets picked up off the street before the truck arrives. Other times of year, you have to take it to the SMART station (new, fancy dump) and pay a fee to get rid of it. Anyway, if it just happens to be "Big Garbage Month" when Xander is trying to hide, he'd have a lot more options.