The Collecting Spots of Trash
In the evening, the collecting spots would be always crowded with a multitude of people who were waiting for the garbage trucks. During the waiting time, they always chatted with each other about the ordinary conversation in a great delight. With the melodic music, they figured out when the trucks would be showed up. At last, when the music of “For Elise” was sounding, you would see three kinds of trucks. The first one was “the big yellow” which was special for the garbage. The second was “A-sheng” with electric pedal for collecting kitchen waste. And the third was “Zi Zi” with big bags on the sides for recycling. In some places, there were only two kinds of trucks because they combined the kitchen waste truck and the recycling truck into one truck.

When throwing the garbage, you would watch housewives with trash bags and kitchen waste in hands. Someone would get a dolly to move the garbage since he (or she) got a long time to throw the trash. The other would take a little bag to throw the trash in a relaxed way. Sometimes, you would see people who would take advantage of the trash time to take a walk with kids or puppies.

The Vivid Activities in Communities

In the interview to of Taipei City Government (TDEP), we asked curiously, “Why did the activities of collecting garbage become the general mobilization of the community?”

The officer in TDEP said, “It’s an extra worth. We did not expect the activities of collecting garbage would become the general mobilization of the community.”

Mr. Lee, the leader of TDEP, explained continuously, “In the past, the residents put the garbage in a certain spot, and then the sanitation team would clean the garbage later. The action of throwing the garbage was a personal behavior. Now, we changed the way of delivering the garbage to suit the policy of “No Garbage on the Ground” and “To Collect Garbage on the Fixed Time and Place“. The neighbors would carry out the garbage in the same time to wait for the garbage truck. During the waiting time, the neighbors would have the chance to know each other. This way of throwing the garbage was stepping up the special social function of the general mobilization in the communities. In modern society, the hectic life made people feel not so close together. The time of throwing the garbage would enable neighbors to have the opportunities to talk and know each other. Although the way of throwing the garbage on the certain time and place let some citizens feel inconvenient, most resident gave the positive response and identified the policy as the successful one.

Taipei citizens said, “It is not only the time to throw the garbage, but also the chance to interact with the neighbors. When waiting for the garbage truck, we always chatted with each other to have the social interaction further.”

The Delivering Routes and Collecting Spots

According to the report of TDEP, there were192 delivering routes, 192 garbage trucks and 4109 collecting garbage spots in Taipei. Generally speaking, a garbage truck would stop at 3~5 places in a route. Particularly, if the routes have the night market, the truck would stop at more than 15 places to collect the garbage. A truck would be responsible for a route. It would take 1~1.5 hours to collect the garbage in a route. If the collecting places are more, the time to collect the garbage would be shorter in one place.

In other words, in a community, maybe there were several spots in different routes to collect the garbage. If the citizens missed one spot, however, they would have the nearby places to throw the garbage.

 

Since the collecting time was fixed in the evening, in order to offer convenience to the citizens who would work and did not have time to throw the garbage in the evening, TDEP installed the collecting places in the daytime. In Taipei, there were 53 places to collect the garbage in the daytime. The open time was from 6:00 to 12:00 in the morning and 1:30 to 4:00 in the evening. The collecting places in the daytime would be satisfied with the requirements of the citizens who could not be at home in the evening to wait for the garbage truck. The sanitary team in Shinyi County where we visited was one of the collecting places in the daytime.

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