who does stuff like that?

One of the cool things about living in my town are the myriad recycling centers, most of which are located at a particular grocery store. It's so easy and convenient to know there are so many places to take that trunk full of empty beer bottles, though it doesn't mean I haul all that out nearly as often as I should. Too often my garage looks as if a recyclable shit bomb just exploded.

Weekends the recycling bins are often full. I haven't checked the schedule of when the company comes to tote away the full bins, but it's early in the week. I've had plenty of recycling weekends that saw full bins.

At least a couple of times, because of the bins being so full at one location, I've driven down Broadway to the next closest, usually finding those bins nearly as full. Either way, I've usually managed to get my shit in. If not I suck it up and take back home what I couldn't cram in. There's always another day.

Apparently not everyone sees things the way I do. It seems some people feel it's okay, if the bins are too full, to just leave their recycling laying on the ground next to the bin. I'm sure it's not their job to do anything any different, and certainly if the bins are full it's their right to leave their shit on the ground.

I kind of don't think this is okay, and I got to watch it happen recently while dropping off my recycling with a friend. He was shouldering other people's mixed paper back, holding the tide at bay so to speak, while I was cramming my own mixed paper in while simultaneously catching Game Informer magazines that were intent on escape.

I mentioned to my friend the piles of recycling littering the ground, vocalizing my point about it being not okay, wondering aloud what sort of douche would do such. As I asked these questions I realized the woman who was also dropping off her recycling had done the very thing I'd just questioned.

My point: when the bins are picked up, there is very likely one person driving a truck. His or her job is to pick up the full bin, possibly having just dropped an empty replacement bin, and repeat with each successive bin until they are all fresh and empty.

So now the problem of the lazy locals who felt it okay to dump their goods on the ground. Who do they think is going to come behind them and clean up their mess? Whose job is it really to make sure that their recycling makes it into a bin? Would that there was a way to contact them and make them come back and finish the job.

And to take it probably a little farther than makes sense, I'd say this is a sign of some why-Americans-are-dicks/selfish sort of thing. There are people doing this very thing, leaving their shit for someone else, and there are many of them doing it. They can't possibly think it's all right to leave their shit, can't possibly believe it's not their responsibility.