Sandy, Utah, where Mom, Dad, and I live, offers fall bulk garbage pickup days in November. On these days, the city’s whole population, it seems, puts their junk on the curb for the city crews to haul away.  Looking up the street before the pickup day, I saw grills, wheelbarrows, mattresses, bed frames, bicycles, benches, logs, pipes, boxes, bins, water heaters, microwave ovens, and most anything else you can imagine.  Mom and Dad do not accumulate much junk, so the items I placed on the curb comprised only six iron T-posts.  Metal scrappers scoured the city in their beat-up pick-up trucks, picking out metal items from the piles.  I went to sleep, with huge piles on the street, and awoke to find all the metal gone—only the plastic and wood items remained for the city to haul off.  A good result, I suppose, with the metals being recycled instead of dumped in the landfill. One neighbor removed dozens of rotting railroad ties from his landscaping and mounded them on the street.  I was appalled at the enormous pile, but the city’s front-end-loader made quick work of it.  While amazed at the waste of numerous seemingly good items being thrown away, still I appreciated the city for helping people de-junk and de-clutter and otherwise clean up their properties, contributing to the community’s aesthetic and reducing public nuisances.  I admire a local government that encourages its residents to be clean and tidy, following up with heavy equipment and trucks—lots of them.

(Photo from Sandy City, Utah, website.)