TRASH TO TREASURES

I'm not sure if other communities do this, I know that the first time I encountered it was here in Oakville, and I find it very bizarre. The three days before Mar. 24 saw trucks scouring the streets in our neighbourhood; you could hear the rattling of the treasures they carried, the metal roof of a shed, a battery charger, rain gutters. I saw mini-vans and cars with furniture strapped to their roofs.

On Mar. 23, I moved our junk pile from behind our house to the front curb, it contained very broken plastic garden chairs, some eaves, and mostly the remnants of the itty bitty deck that we had before we built our summer family/dining room (aka: huge patio). To my surprise, an hour later the wood and metal were all gone, picked up by someone who wanted it - and even more surprising, someone later took the chairs (did I mention they were split in half?). So the "garbage" that took up 3/4 of my front curb was whittled down to a bucket and a few pieces of drywall. If you ask me, this "bulk collection" that happens once a year is a pretty good way to re-use and recycle . Now if we could only get the green box program going!

The picture is from alpharat.blogspot.com