This morning, while changing trains at Mustek (Isabel hates it when I refer to the Metro as a train…corrects me every time) I saw something that made me happy. Garbage cans. Big, heavy, sparkling, brand new garbage cans.
There are three reasons this filled my heart with joy. One is, of course, that it gives me a place to throw the used tissues and candy wrappers which inevitably accumulate in my pockets. Second is that litter is one of my pet peeves, it really irritates the hell out of me. Of course, garbage cans are only part of the solution. You very often see litter within inches of a rubbish bin, because some people really couldn’t care less. There is a piece of graffiti I see whenever I take bus #135 between Churchill Square and Masarykovo station that says “We don’t want clean city”. These are apparently the same people who don’t want correct grammar in English, but they exist and we have to deal with them.
When I was in Kuala Lumpur, before it turned into the vacation from hell, I was quite impressed with how clean the sidewalks were kept. Part of it was that there were rubbish bins on absolutely every corner. I suspect that another side of it was heavy fines and maybe worse, but I’m sure the rubbish bins helped.
And the rubbish bins are something that every municipality could provide, at a minimum cost. They are not high tech, they don’t wear out quickly and they can even double as advertising space, if you like.
The 3rd reason, though, has to do with why the garbage cans were removed from the Metro in the first place. It was in the worldwide wave of mass hysteria after the World Trade Center towers collapsed in NY, (yes, I think it was an inside job) way back in 2001.
Maybe, after 10 years of acting like scared rabbits, we can finally forget about 9/11 and move forward.
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