Containing It-Trash Talk #3

Despite, all eyes on the world cup this week, (the soccer playoffs) I promised a third part to my trash talk series. It's a fluff piece on the artistic side of home trash containers.

When we first bought our house here in Uruguay, we wondered where to put our household trash for the twice weekly pickup service. We were shown a little rusty wire basket on a stick in the ground.  The wire  basket had the holding capacity of two tiny plastic Tienda Inglesa bags (our local supermarket). We knew we would need something a little bigger because of all our unpacking trash necessary in setting up a new household. Looking around the neighborhoods, we started to see a pattern of trash on the ground 2 x's a week. People would put their trash out the night before for the next day's trash pickup and the dogs would stand up and open the bags during the night.

We knew we needed a covered can to prevent this. We bought one that looked like a 30 gallon drum cut on it's side, one half becomes the bottom, the other half the lid. The one we got was simply made and the lid hinges lasted about 6 months. The lid, then laid on the ground most of the time. Finally we saw an example of a better made one and so we hired an herrero (an iron worker) to make it right. Our can now, has a wide rim around it, instead of razor thin edges and puny hinges.

Here are some  more local examples and designs of home trash containers here in Uruguay. You've probably seen similar pictures before as this is a favorite expat subject for picture taking.

Notice the interesting tree straps used to hold this container up.

If our original basket was as cool as that spider web designed one I showed above I definitely would have kept it!

If you can't afford a can improvise, as shown below.

 It must be a challenge for the garbage people to find every-one's refuse during the week. 

I hope you enjoyed this series on trash in Uruguay.