Taking out the trash

Today is August 31st, 2020. It is a garbage year, in that we are enjoying the rotting fruit of previous years of negligence and refuse as their remains decompose and create a confluence of crises, but look—there’s a birthday hat in the garbage. Maybe someone had a fun birthday.

Anyways.

My partner and I live (unmarried, in sin) on the 3rd floor of a walk-up in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, which is rapidly gentrifying (also in sin). I don’t actually know what the definition of a walk-up is, but I do know this: there is no elevator, and we must … walk up … the stairs to get to our apartment.

We live in a building with five other units. One of the entrances into our 3-br apartment (which costs $2400 / mo) opens into the kitchen and onto a covered back porch area. This back porch is where we keep a table (purchased from craigslist), some office chairs we bought for $25 (also a craigslist purchase), an assortment of spider plants (man do they propogate like crazy), our bikes, and two bicycle pumps.

This is how we take out the trash.

First, is the trash smelly? If not, leave until no more trash can be packed into the can (which is about thigh high, has a little stomper on it so you can open the lid without touching it, purchased from Wayfair for $34 and shipped to our home in a large cardboard box that Nala likes to sleep in. I always find it a little silly how we need to buy containers for the trash, but our previous system of hanging a possibly perforated plastic bag over the doorknob was not ideal).

Once it is either smelly or way too full, open the lid of the trashcan (using fingers, not stompy thing. There is need for more fine-grained control at this point). Pry the garbage bag off of the rim. Locate the bag’s drawstring and pull tight. Lift and look at the bottom of the can. Is it juicy down there? If so, the worst thing in the world has happened to you, and you need to take the entire can down to the alley. Then you’ll need to wash out the trashcan and leave it turned upside down to dry.

If it’s dry, you’re in luck. You can remove the trashbag from the trashcan—watching carefully in case there are any leaks this time. Then, quickly open the back door and walk down three flights of stairs, checking the neighbor’s back porches for any updates to their outdoor seating areas. Walk through the slim courtyard, protected by a high wooden fence on one side that is now bedecked with some decorative wrought iron adornments in the shape of flowers and butterflies. Open the door to the alley. Make sure you have your keys with you. Turn left towards the dumpsters.

One is for recycling (the one with the bright orange lid) and the other is for garbage. Grab the edge of the dumpster lid and lift it up enough to hurl the bag of garbage in there.

Walk back to the gate to your apartment building. Fumble for the key. Walk through the door. Hear it slam behind you. Walk back upstairs and wash your hands for 20 seconds. Then, replace the garbage bag in the garbage can. The bags are just a little too small for the can so it’s a bit of an engineering problem to get it to fit, but it always eventually works.

Now you can enjoy filling up your empty can with more of your waste!