Photography And Half-Thoughts By Mitchell Hegman

...because some of it is pretty and some of it is not.

Thursday, December 5, 2024

A Trash Fatality

Living out in the country, I have subscribed to a bi-weekly trash pickup service. The service is a bit weird. I’m required to drag my two bins nearly 100 yards out onto the prairie where two roads converge. I do this late on a Tuesday evening because the disposal truck arrives between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. Wednesday morning.

The problem is, the disposal truck is a monster of sorts. For one thing, it rumbles terribly coming and going in the predawn darkness. It also has way too many lights: amber lights, glaring white lights, flashing lights.

And it beeps.

The biggest issue, however, is the robotic arm the truck extends to grab and empty my bins. The arm does not have a soft touch. Sometimes, the arm goes rogue and abuses my bins. I regularly find them lying on their sides. Every so often, the arm squeezes the bins improperly and damages them.

Yesterday morning, when I strutted out to the prairie to retrieve my empty bins, I found only half of one bin. Fatal damage on this run.

My Trash Bins Back at the House

—Mitchell Hegman

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