Life in the Suburbs - It's All About Rubbish

I know I live in suburbia because when someone passes me on the footpath they say hello. They look a bit sheepish, but they say it.

Very few people walk anywhere, they all have cars, several of them. In fact you never actually see many people. They are cocooning. Just like Faith Popcorn said they would 10 years ago.

It's nice and quiet, but I'm struggling with a few issues. I'm struggling with my rubbish. I have discovered rubbish collection is a suburban artform. Here in this part of Sydney you get three enormous bins - red, green and yellow. And you put them out on the street in front of your house, on the right day, just like everyone else in the street. It seems to be some kind of secret code that everyone knows but it never gets talked about. Everyone who lives in the suburbs anyway. A true citydweller doesn't have to put bins out. Your rubbish goes down a shute and it's gone forever. Fantastic.

Luckily for me the cable tv guy came round on Thursday last week, and explained to me I'd put out the wrong bin. He also fixed the cable tv which is miraculous in itself. It appears I've been doing the wrong thing with my rubbish for a month.

I was under the impression you put all three bins out on rubbish day - Thursday. Would this not seem the obvious thing to do? Nah. As this very sensible cable guy explained, the green bin for garden rubbish and the yellow bin for recyclables are rotated, week and week about. That's why I've noticed some of my bins haven't been emptied. I wonder how long it would have taken me to figure this out on my own? Years probably.

I'm also a little disappointed none of my friendly - but distant - neighbours has popped over to take me in hand and explain it all. I expect they simply don't realise that it's possible to live in Sydney for almost three years without putting out a rubbish bin. I never did this in the city. I had no idea. They must think I'm nuts. Or very very stupid.

I referred to my mother for further instructions. She lives in Queensland but apparently they have a similar system. Amazing. I told her I was confused because the people in the next block had their green bins out, and they were emptied, but mine wasn't. I thought it meant the people in my street didn't have any "green" to put out. But she says no, what happens is the people around the corner are on another rubbish collection route and might have completely different days for collection.

My God it's so complex! The system itself is fantastic, much better to have these great big wheelie bins than the silly little blue bin we had for recycling in Wellington. Back home you go to sleep listening to the sound of the wind blowing your neighbour's little blue recycling bin down the bank beside your house. Smacking into the wall just outside the bedroom on the way down. Ah, the memories.

Of course the environmental side of the coin is the theory that if you give people big rubbish bins, they'll just fill them up. When they should be ploughing it all back into the earth. Or paying a lot of extra money to have it disposed of. I wish councils gave out compost bins. If I had one I'd use it. But I'm not putting one in a backyard I don't own.

That would be a great thing to make out of recycled plastic wouldn't it?