Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Garbage

So, for those of you who we haven't told about our list of garbage separation rules, here's how it goes:

-All burnable garbage that is a non-recyclable goes into a yellow bag and is picked up on Wednesdays. It is placed in the yellow grated box. Everything else is picked up on Tuesday and Thursday and is placed in a different grated box.
-Non-burnable, non-recyclable garbage is placed in a clear bag with red writing. You have to write your district name and family name on the bag (I'm assuming we either get billed for this or there's some religious thing involved in disposing of non-burnables...I have no clue). We finally got that much figured out and we're disposing an umbrella that looks like it was used in a fight with a brick wall.
-Glass bottles and recyclable metals are placed in separate blue bags with the appropriate box checked off to identify the contents (though the bags are transparent enough that one shouldn't need to look for the tiny identifying mark).
-PET plastics (the standard plastic for making bottles) must be separated from their lids and wrappers (which are made in a manner that removing them is convenient) and placed into a purple bag, with the appropriate mark.
-The wrappers and lids are then put into a different purple bag, along with most other recyclable plastics and plastic bags. Again, adding the appropriate mark.
-Thin cardboards (cereal boxes, etc.) and paper bags are placed in another purple bag along with the appropriate mark.
-Styrofoams that do not belong in the miscellaneous recyclable plastics bag go into a fourth purple bag.
-Corrugated cardboard, newspaper and magazines must be bound into separate stacks with recyclable plastic cord. Apparently, people get paid for these, but our apartment situation makes it difficult to know whose papers are whose, so Nat's coworkers/boss (I dunno which) want(s) us to take all of these things to be picked up at the school instead. I don't know how easy they think it is to bike four stacks of outdated magazines plus a stack of cardboard to the school is, but I think I might just put it out with the other recyclables.
-Hazardous materials (gasoline, kerosene, motorbikes, electronics and the like) are handled in a completely different manner. I don't know what that manner is, but it's completely different. The same goes for large amounts of brick, tile, stone or dirt.

Usually, we don't have enough of any one of the recyclables to take out every time (we can only buy big purple bags, while the blue and yellow come in both big and small sizes). The burnable garbage, since it is only picked up once a week, unlike the others, has been forgotten twice. Hopefully, we'll find our rhythm real soon.

Moving on to the subject of food, I managed to get some whitefish at the grocery store and made a fish soup. I also found some okra and slow cooked it with some chicken and vegetables. For both, I've been perfecting my homemade tomato sauce techniques. Having a mortar and pestil is helpful when canned tomato sauces and pastes are nowhere to be found. I may also get around to making a salsa sometime, if I can manage to find any sort of hot peppers....and tortilla chips. Well, maybe not.

Tonight's dinner includes a lotus root salad...unless I ruin it. I sure hope not! I like lotus root salad. My Japanese cookbooks are here, though (thanks, Mom!), so I shouldn't be ruining too many more meals. *shakes fist at the bitter melon*

1 comment:

Natalie said...

Incidentally I thought the goya was good. :<

You're so cute. I love you. :D