Something else doesn't stink, either.

It was Thursday night, and I was taking out the trash. Earl saw me wheeling the barrels to the curb and came over.

“Hey, your recycling bin isn't blue.” It's true, mine wasn't. When the previous neighbors left, they took their bin with them. After reading the FAQ on my sub-urban city's website, I went out and bought two regular trash cans, and wrote “recycling” with a magic marker on both of them.

“No, I don't. Those blue bins aren't big enough.” This was true piles of beer cans, newspapers and the occasional lawn mower blade easily filled both of the large cans.

“But your bins are supposed to be blue. They're not supposed to pick it up otherwise.”

“Well, these are green. Isn't that more with the 'Green' movement?”

“They're not really green.” He was right, they actually were kind of olive drab.

“But they are kind of green.” I retorted.

Earl stared at the cans intently for a moment, and then spoke. “Let me ask you something—how come you are the only person on the block that has these large green cans—everyone else has our small bins issued by the city. How did you get them? How did you get the sanitation engineers to pick them up?”

“Well, earl, you know that I'm an appointed judge.”

“A judge of election.” Earl stated correctly.

“Doesn't make a difference. When you're a judge, you get special privileges. It's actually pretty sophisticated.”

“Yes?” Earl was suspicious, like a small dog eying a hotdog dangling from a toddler's fist.

“You see, I was issued these cans by the government. That's why they're this shade of green.”

“What? They're army surplus?'

“Kind of. They're actually specially treated plastic. They were originally used for storing nuclear waste.”

Earl took a few steps upwind. “Radioactive waste?”

“Yes. By accident, scientists discovered that the residual radiation was an excellent deterrent to flies. In fact, the irradiation also kills all of the bacteria. Because of it, my garbage is actually sterile.”

Comments

[Harold Hawken]

Hey, where can I get some of those radioactive recycling cans? That seems like a pretty good idea! I'll bet the garbage breaks down faster in the landfill.