Just get the app, idiot.
I suspect that’s what the good folks of the Town of Okotoks would tell me – they wouldn’t be that rude, but I’m pretty sure they’d be thinking it – if I were to complain about the pending change to the waste collection schedule.
My beef is not with the switch to bi-weekly garbage collection or potential odours emanating from an over-filled cart, but rather it has to do with the separation of collection days. Organics and recycling will be picked up on a different day from garbage, meaning I will soon have two ‘garbage’ days.
Technically, I’ll only have two ‘garbage’ days twice a month because while green and blue bins will continue to be picked up weekly, garbage will be collected every second week beginning in May.
Up to this point, my garbage day has been Wednesday, which means I’ve got it burned into the brain that I roll all three carts to the curb every Tuesday evening. The only caveat to that is in the winter when the green bin is picked up bi-weekly.
During this time, I could go to the app or the website to see if it’s my week for the green bin, but I find it’s much easier to just look out the living room window to see if the neighbours have their green bin at the curb, which I fully admit is not a foolproof system.
Keeping track of the new schedule is going to be more difficult as not only will I have to get familiar with an organics/recycling day as well as a garbage day, but I’ll also need to figure out which is my garbage week and which isn’t. I’m banking on my neighbours getting up to speed in a hurry so I can continue to use the window method.
The Town's rationale for separating collection days – it will allow residents to properly space carts and fewer trucks on the road at once will result in safer and less crowded streets – isn’t terribly compelling, nor is the tried-and-true excuse that others do it so we should too.
The new schedule will see bins on the side of the road twice in a week, which seems to me will come with its own set of issues, including being a pain in the butt for those who have to deal with street parking.
I’m fully aware this is a First World problem, but that doesn’t mean I don’t long for the good old days when things were simpler, which, incidentally, is every Wednesday from now until the end of next month.
I figured trying to keep track of the new schedule might be too much for my brain to handle, particularly early on while I get familiar with my two ‘garbage’ days, so I broke down and downloaded the Town’s waste collection app. The only problem is the app didn’t recognize my address, so I couldn’t access my pick-up schedule or ensure I receive automatic reminders.
Maybe I’ll have better luck with it if I give it another try, but in the meantime, I'll be sticking with the front window method.
