Still, people said just being able to see familiar faces - even if partly obscured by masks - has been a source of solace at a time when the pandemic has left many feeling isolated. And some who live in upscale apartments have building management take care of their trash.Ĭoncerns about the coronavirus have also meant people are more wary of interacting at pickup times. Of course, there are still the anti-social types who just want to dump their trash and leave.
In 2018, a candidate for Taiwan’s legislature in the city of Kaohsiung followed the garbage truck so he could campaign at pickup sites. There are stories of couples who met while waiting in line for the trash pickup. The system has also fostered a sense of community in many neighborhoods, helping strengthen the civil society that undergirds Taiwan’s vibrant democracy. “Through this system we can avoid garbage piling up and keep our environment clean,” said Mr Yang Chou-mou, an official at the environmental protection bureau in charge of sanitation work in Xinyi District. It’s all part of a decades-old waste management policy in Taiwan under which “trash is not allowed to touch the ground.” Officials insist that forcing people to hand-deliver their trash to the trucks - as opposed to wheeling out their bins for a later pickup or tossing the garbage into a dumpster - has been essential to the transformation of a place once nicknamed “garbage island” into a clean, largely litter-free society. All have their ears open for those first bars of “Für Elise” or “Maiden’s Prayer,” a flowing piano melody by 19th-century Polish composer Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska that is the other tune of choice for Taiwan’s trash trucks. Some pass the time looking at their phones. Visit any city or rural town and five days a week, rain or shine, you’ll find people idling on the side of the road with bags at their side, waiting for the garbage trucks. Waste collection systems vary around the world, but no place does it quite like Taiwan. “I think it’s a good system,” Mr Xiang said. The faint stink of garbage suffused the air. “Sometimes I bring out the garbage by myself, sometimes we come out together,” said Mr Xiang Zhong, 18, a high school student who was there with a group of friends. Some brought their pets.Īnd yes, there were Crocs, those universal take-out-the-trash shoes. They wore jeans, store uniforms and sweatpants. They came on foot, by bicycle and on scooters, lugging their presorted trash in carts and plastic bags. The yellow trash truck - and a smaller white recycling truck behind it - heaved to a stop in front of a brightly lit convenience store in a middle-class residential neighborhood in Xinyi District, Taipei’s financial center.Ī team of garbage collectors hopped down and began setting out an array of cans, including separate receptacles for paper, plastic, glass, metal, raw food (for compost) and cooked food (for pig feed.)įor the next 20 minutes, what had been a subdued street scene transformed into something akin to a neighborhood block party as residents, old and young, converged on the trash truck from every direction. “I enjoy taking out the trash because it’s a chance to catch up with my friends,” said Ms Kusmi, 52, who is originally from Indonesia and now lives in Taipei, the island’s capital, where she works as a caregiver to the elderly. But for the residents of Taiwan, the jingle is a call to action, the start of a nightly ritual, a signal to tie up those plastic bags and come on downstairs: It’s trash collection time.
To much of the world, the classical melody is the (too) ubiquitous song of youthful piano lessons and children’s toys.
TAIPEI - The canary-yellow garbage truck rumbled along the narrow street, past bubble tea shops and squat apartment buildings, blasting into the chilly night air a tinny rendition of Beethoven’s “Für Elise.”
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