fishing in the bins

Hawken King (September 22, 2006)

I’m an avid recycler, I love nothing more than separating my garbage. I even scrape the little bits off plastic trays or from the inside of cans, even going so far as to wash the cans. Knowing that not that many people do this does get me down, and often people visiting my apartment will just throw mixed garbage into my bins. Or better still, miss the lining bag completely.

The only reason I do this? Well, Japan is rather hot in the summer. If you don’t separate your waste foods from what it came in, it will stink the place out, as different types of garbage are picked up on different days, with burnable (waste food & waste paper) being the most frequent.

A few days ago I half ate some potato snacks. I folded the bag and put it aside to eat later. In a cleaning frenzy that bag went into the bin, complete. Remember feeling bad at the time because plastic is un-burnable garbage therefore needs to be separated.

Fast Forward a few days and I’m drinking beer, wondering what I can eat. I search the house high and low, but no snacks are to be found. I even considered cooking something… however watching a film and cooking are not mentally compatible in my world. Instinctively I went for the potato snacks I had been munching on a few days previously, turfing out the bin to find them. It’s safe to say that I was drunk at this point. I knew it was wrong. My thoughts ranged from “what the hell are you doing?!” to “mmm, snacks”. I knew it was wrong. Finally, discovering the snacks I poured them onto my sofa, the bag stank like ketchup and ashtrays, but the snacks were safe. The snacks were safe.

With no real side effects, I ate 5 day old snacks I found in my bin.

What the hell is wrong with me!



|