Last Tuesday, I was officially marked. Branded with the 'Orange Sticky' of shame. Like getting detention in school for bad behaviour, our neighbours had to pass by my unemptied blue bin knowing I'd been caught flagrante delicto with an unauthorized vessel. My crime? Ambition. I dared to have more than four quarts of milk a week. I'm sure you've all suffered the Sticky for a non-conforming paper container, a miscoloured or misshaped bin, the official blue bag (for paper only) being used for plastics because, like me, your bins probably overflow with those Costco grape and strawberry boxes particularly when the summer's here and, heck, you have to put them somewhere.
Having suffered the "Orange Sticky" hand-slap enough in the past, I'd made a point of buying plenty of blue bags, but the blue box was a different problem. There's no room in my recycle cupboard and precious little room anywhere else to store the compressed 4-quart milk plastics, the baby formula empties, Starbucks paper and plastics, good old cans and bottles, and now, finally, my strawberry soymilk containers recently permitted entry into the hallowed hall of recycling. So, off I trot to Alpine Disposal to purchase the next size up in blue boxes that I'd enviously seen curb side in some districts.
"Oh, we only sell the one size," the girl tells me who turns out to be one of my neighbours. "You should try Staples or Walmart."
"Fair enough," I say, figuring they've missed out on market demand.
Staples is close by and sure enough they have two different bigger sizes in official looking recycle-blue. I pick the smaller of the two. Back home, I'm thrilled. It's not a lot bigger, but the extra space makes all the difference. Instead of struggling down our long, steep driveway at least twice with plastics tumbling from the official sized box, I'm fully contained.
Then, I get a bad girl "Orange Sticky".
"Your bin is oversized and we refuse to empty it!!!"
Ah!!
What is with these Recycle Police? What the heck difference does it make to them to not have to bend down so far, or so often? One up-and-over as opposed to two. And where do they get off with that attitude?
It's all about power, isn't it?
If they don't take those damn plastics and bottles away from us, what are we going to do with them? We're sick of the things as it is, overflowing out of our cupboards, our porches, our kitchens when we miss the pick-up by mistake. My husband swears recycling takes more energy than it saves and scatters mess all over our cul-de-sac, when it's windy and wet, which is frequent in Victoria. Besides there's the sorting, peeling, washing and squashing time he says I waste. He resents the whole process, and I understand why now we've got a new set of police to deal with.
I just phoned the Capital Regional District (CRD) who manages the recycle program, then International Paper who are the contracted pickup company in our area. Guess what they told me?
"Oh, it's WorkSafe BC rules because some people were putting too many heavy things in big bins so we stopped picking them up."
Don't you love bureaucracy and power? I challenge anyone to fill my slightly bigger recycle box with enough of any recycle plastic, bottles, or cans to make it even half of the weight of garbage bins. Come on! I've seen more muscular effort from a toddler fighting a car seat. My four-year-old grandson can hoist this bin one-handed while eating a Goldfish cracker. What are we hiring? Victorian orphans with the vapors? Besides, I bet most oversized bins really aren't too heavy and, hey, you've always got those "Orange Stickies" for that one in a hundred "too heavy bigger bin", right?
But an outright rule is so much easier, isn't it?
I phoned back CRD and they pulled out their winning card.
"If we don't obey the WorkSafe BC rules, and insist people use only the official WorkSafe BC designed blue box, our workers won't be covered if they have an injury.
Ah, the ultimate bureaucratic trump card: Safety. Apparently, lifting a bin of empty strawberry containers is a high-risk occupation akin to deep-sea welding or lion taming!
Clearly, my new blue box is doomed. I'll have to dispose of it. I'll have to replace it with two new official WorkSafe BC designed, CRD approved smaller boxes. More plastic.
But how can I dispose of my new doomed oversized box? I'll have to put it in the recycle, except it's oversized so no one will take it. I can't give it to Big Brothers or the Salvation Army because then someone else will assume they can use it and end up in the same "Orange Sticky" humiliation.
The dump. The dump is the only answer. I'll smuggle it out like contraband. I'll bury it in a heavy-duty black bag under a layer of onion peels and used diapers—the only things the government actually lets you throw away without a background check. Take that, Constable Recycle.
Phew! I knew I'd find an answer if I thought about it long enough!