In the dumps

I thought I'd talk about rubbish collection. True, we have a general election this weekend so I might have written about that. After all I've been shouting at the television because the right wingers, populist allies of Trump, Kaczyński, Bolsonaro and Hofer, are using their election spots to show security camera footage of illegal immigrants (they say) involved in brawls and muggings. I might equally have held forth about the incredible distortion of the truth that the British press seems to have swallowed hook, line and sinker about Cataluña in general and about Clara Ponsati in particular. Actually though I laughed out loud when I read about the rambling 59 page warrant for her arrest. I thought back to the multi page letters I get from the Tax Office or the Land Registry and just knew that that part at least was true. But no, rubbish collection it is.

Generally here, you take the rubbish, the stuff that doesn't get recycled, to some big containers in the street. In towns the containers are emptied every day. In rural locations, like ours, the schedule varies. For years and years the bin lorry came three times a week almost without fail. For the last eighteen months or so our collections have been more haphazard. Sometimes they come, sometimes they don't. I thought this was because the company had changed, certainly the name on the bins changed, but the town hall website says it's been the same firm since at least 2014 though there was a new contract in December 2017. The non collection isn't, generally, a big deal because the bin is big enough to deal with all the houses it serves for at least a week. When the bin does overflow it's generally because one of us has dumped lots of stuff that shouldn't really be going to landfill.

About a month ago our next door neighbour complained on the WhatsApp group for Culebrón that the bin was overflowing. I joined in and so did the person who's a sort of representative to the town hall from the village. As an upshot I went to the town hall office that deals with environmental stuff to complain directly. They were very pleasant and said they'd give the firm a firm reminder. Obviously nothing much changed.

We've now got into a little game. When I notice that the bin hasn't been emptied I send a message to the town hall's "incidents" number. They thank me for my message and say they will talk to the relevant department. In today's message, for the first time, I added just a whisper of sarcasm. The reply mentioned that I was the only person complaining. I agreed that was probably the case and added that almost certainly the bin lorry company was doing exactly as it should and it was just a slip, an error, a lapse that they repeatedly missed our bin out as they emptied all the rest.