Waste Management

Garbage collection on the islands seems quite involved – every house is supplied with at least three of these waist-tall (well, maybe chest-tall on me) wheelie bins, and much like at home, the colour of the bin designates the contents. The bins are cool – the garbage men (yes, so far it’s all been men) roll them up to the truck and an apparatus lifts the bins, tilts them to open, dumps the contents into the truck, and then sets the bins back down to be rolled back to the driveway. Much slower than at home, but much much easier on the workers’ backs. Again like at home, certain garbage is picked up on differing weeks. The property manager walked me through the rules and schedules the day I moved in: the re-cycling bins (there are two) pick up four different types of recycling depending on the week: glass, paper, metal, plastic; and that’s what the inserts in each bin are for. Except they don’t like you using the inserts, so don’t. It’s because of COVID. The black bins are for all other garbage and now, because of COVID we don’t separate out food waste for composting; it’s all gets thrown out with the trash. COVID is blamed for a lot: one less-than-cheery hotel receptionist told me I couldn’t have a Do Not Disturb sign for my room because of COVID!?! (But that’s a story for another day)

The schedule is also quite detailed and as a result of the bi-weekly black bin (garbage and food waste) pick-up, coupled with my arrival day and trip down to Glasgow, it was several weeks before I managed to be home on that day. Now, after having lived two decades in a neighbourhood with skunks and raccoons, I was leery to leave my garbage outside in the black bin. It since turns out that there are no predators strong enough or clever enough on Orkney to open the bin, but I didn’t know that at the time. So the garbage started to build up. I was able to get rid of one small bag in a petrol station one day, but the staff don’t like you doing that, and I was worrying about the rest. So I froze it. By the time the actual collection day came around, I had two bags of garbage in the freezer, and one in the fridge (as shown). Yep, I was stockpiling garbage. In my own defense I was trying to be prudent – I’ve always had my garbage cans in a closed garage up until now, and a racoon could very easily open these bins sitting in the backyard. And I do not relish the thought of cleaning up the mess they make.

But yes, in case you’re wondering, I do now put my garbage directly in the outdoor bin. Still haven’t mastered the rotation for re-cycling, but I’ve lots of cupboard space for now and I’ll figure that routine out soon.