in the trash

If anyone ever creates a “scariest trash can” award, Montreal should definately be the winner. Especially the garbage cans on St. Catherine St in downtown Montreal. I don’t exactly know what it is that causes them to be in the state they are – perhaps some combination of strange union policies, the fact that none of them have plastic liners in them, or the heat & humidity of the summer – but they are truly terrifying. As one appropaches a garbage can, one cannot help but notice the sickly black ichor that has drained from the bottom of the can (as they do not have bags) in the opposite direction as the mountain. It is not (usually) wet, but has dried to form a thin, sticky crust on the sidewalk. Then, as one actually approaches the can, one may be rewarded with a glance inside which looks about as clean as the inside of a garbage truck. It is spashed with the aforementioned ichor and very likely brimming full of all sorts of garbage from a disposable society – fast food containers, coffee cups, and newspapers (despite the fact that there are places to recycle all over downtown and inside the metro …finally). And let’s not forget the smell – well, we all know what garbage smells like and I don’t think Montreal garbage is much different from that anywhere else in that aspect. I suspect most of the ichor is from remains of soft drinks, but the way it looks brings to mind horrifying images of dismembered bodies being disposed in them, at least to me.

The garbage can at the bus stop where I catch the bus every morning went for nearly 2 weeks before it was emptied in the middle of July. Despite the fact that it was full after about 4 days, people continued to place garbage on top of it, as if placing it in a concentric heap so that it will be knocked off or blown off by the feeblest of breezes does not count as littering. One time I saw a guy come to clean the bus shelter (not the garbage can, though, that must belong to another union) and that helped a little, as he swept up the stray trash that had fallen out (or maybe it was just thrown in the bus shelter to start with, who can tell?).

The solutions seem simple to me – put in liners, empty them regularly, and wash them once in a while!