Garbage Truck Squeeze
03/19/09 03:43 PM Filed in: Mexico
Back when I lived in a manicured California suburb, spiffy garbage trucks visited weekly. In the evening, I trundled my two specially designed garbage containers out to the street: one for recyclables, the other for everything else. Early next morning, the truck stopped at my house, its robot arm snaked out, picked up each can, and dumped it in the appropriate compartment. The lone operator never left his cab.
In San Miguel de Allende, we can’t do that. There are many reasons why not, most involving money. But we have one particular circumstance that will probably prevent any sort of automated pickup, ever. Our streets are too narrow. They’re almost too narrow to admit the dinky trucks that visit three times a week, the trucks where we stand at the curb, boosting our garbage bags up to the guy riding in the bed, knee deep in uckies. On Aldama Street, the only way the truck can get by is to run the right-hand wheels up onto the sidewalk. The driver does this using a specially designed ramp: a short length of heavy wooden beam with a bevel cut at one end.
Even using the sidewalk, he faces a tight squeeze. The truck here is clearing the wing mirror of a parked car by about four inches.
Once the driver miscalculated and sheared off my side view mirror. The replacement part cost $300. I didn’t bother to seek compensation from the City. Cars parked on the street sooner or later will get dinged. Just part of the cost of living in a colonial-era neighborhood. Once, an illegally parked Volkswagen beetle left no room for the garbage truck to get by. The driver rounded up a gang of bystanders who helped him pick the bug up and place it on the sidewalk. San MIguel’s garbage collectors are skilled and resourceful. They always get through, always get their jobs done, albeit sometimes slowly. If you get stuck behind the truck on Aldama, don’t plan on getting to wherever you’re going soon. Might as well drag out that copy of Swann’s Way you’ve been meaning to read since you were in college, turn off your motor, and read about madeleines. You’ll be late for your appointment, but you’ll get in a little self-improvement.
In San Miguel de Allende, we can’t do that. There are many reasons why not, most involving money. But we have one particular circumstance that will probably prevent any sort of automated pickup, ever. Our streets are too narrow. They’re almost too narrow to admit the dinky trucks that visit three times a week, the trucks where we stand at the curb, boosting our garbage bags up to the guy riding in the bed, knee deep in uckies. On Aldama Street, the only way the truck can get by is to run the right-hand wheels up onto the sidewalk. The driver does this using a specially designed ramp: a short length of heavy wooden beam with a bevel cut at one end.
Even using the sidewalk, he faces a tight squeeze. The truck here is clearing the wing mirror of a parked car by about four inches.
Once the driver miscalculated and sheared off my side view mirror. The replacement part cost $300. I didn’t bother to seek compensation from the City. Cars parked on the street sooner or later will get dinged. Just part of the cost of living in a colonial-era neighborhood. Once, an illegally parked Volkswagen beetle left no room for the garbage truck to get by. The driver rounded up a gang of bystanders who helped him pick the bug up and place it on the sidewalk. San MIguel’s garbage collectors are skilled and resourceful. They always get through, always get their jobs done, albeit sometimes slowly. If you get stuck behind the truck on Aldama, don’t plan on getting to wherever you’re going soon. Might as well drag out that copy of Swann’s Way you’ve been meaning to read since you were in college, turn off your motor, and read about madeleines. You’ll be late for your appointment, but you’ll get in a little self-improvement.
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