For you see, taking out the garbage is a rather high stakes, adult affair in Italy. Each home has not one, not two, but FIVE small, bucket-sized trash bins. Each one is for a very specific type of trash.
The mysterious, pre-dawn garbage authority is yet unseen by me, but he? she? apparently come SIX days a week in a dizzying kaleidoscope of recycling and home solid waste sorting. It took me a week before a tip from my young Italian friend Gianluca alerted me that this mysterious note taped up in the kitchen was a veritable Rosetta stone to a deeply held mystery of Italian life. Indeed, when I asked Gianluca via text which bin to use for trash, he responded he didn't know because he lived with his parents, and that they took care of it. So it became clear that trash is a very adult concern here. I became concerned there might even be age limits and so to be safe I deal with the trash instead of young Nathan.
But Gianluca did say the trash people come six days a week with different days for different bins. A light went off and suddenly the note below became clear!
Yes indeed. Monday is for "umido" or damp trash. It goes into the brown bin marked "biologica". Tuesday is for "carta" or paper and goes in the white bin. Wednesday is a rather important day when both glass and aluminum get fetched from the green bin. Thursday is more biologic vegetable peels, fruit cores and spoiled meat. Friday is a regular fiesta with plastics in the yellow bin and the unclassified mixed bag that makes up "indifferentizada" or something like that. These indifferent waste items that refuse to be easily sorted and recycled go into the gray bin.
It all seemed so clear...
But then came another excited trip to the gate and another mournful discovery of unworthy and uncollected trash. Why oh why is my biologic waste not good enough? How are my carrot tops and olive pits proving to be non-conformist?
Another fretful text with Gianluca reveals "biologica" have to be in special bags. It turns out last week's rotting chicken is fine. It's the plastic bag that holds it that faces the stern rejection of the Manziana trash authority.
So I was careful to only put plastic things in a plastic bag and leave them out on a Thursday night in a yellow bin. And triumph! Friday morning's bright sunshine revealed the yellow bin outside the gate was empty. Could the Apostles have felt more joy at that empty sepulcher?!
And now it is time to up my game. I went to the local grocery and in a dark corner found a pack of biological bags. Tonight's food scraps are safely encased in a said bag and lovingly placed in the brown bin. I have set it outside the gate tonight in hopes that Santa Trashman will soon be here and that at last my trash will conform in the right combination of bag, bin and day so that I will have won the Biologica World Cup of Garbage!!
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