Small joys

There is a good rubbish removal system here in Loja. It runs 6 days a week, one day is green waste, the next day is regular waste. 

No third day yet for recycling, although there are recycling bins scattered around town nowadays for plastic bottles (and if you drop your rubbish off at the black and green skips around town, people will filter through the rubbish to find items worth recycling). But I diverge.

We moved into our new place here in Loja last August. The owner didn't have any council bins, no drama, thought I, I'll just go and buy some down at the council office. 

But 'no drama' is not something that always occurs in Loja. 

In August, there were no bins available for purchase. I duly returned a couple of weeks later, still no bins. I asked if there might be an indication of when they might be available. Nope. So after that, I made it a habit to drop into the office periodically when nearby to see if any bins were available. 

I also thought I may as well just put rubbish out in our own personal bin (this saw me one day running madly down the street to ask one of the guys if that would be acceptable or not, he said yes), but then my neighbour tells me I might get a fine for not having a council bin. So I scrapped that idea. 

This saw us piling all our rubbish into the back of the ute to make trips to one of the skips to drop it off. The only problem is when the skips had disappeared from their usual spots. 

I was delighted when one day John remembered to tell me that our friend who works in the council told him that....there were bins for sale!

A mere line up in three lines made me the proud owner of these two beauties (plus one extra trip to exchange the non-opening green one I received first go round).

So pleased was I to finally be able to put my rubbish out on the street the other day and see the guy come along and grab our bin, I did a little victory dance. Now here's hoping they don't get stolen any time soon!