The garbage disposal system in Paignton is even more complicated -- and involves a steeper penalty (£1,000) if done wrongly – than in Swansea. There are four different types that garbage-generators need to segregate before disposal in 3-4 separate bins.
But then, why should that matter to the garbage collector’s Kerala-Goa plans this winter?
We haven’t been able to lose the rubbish since moving into Paignton. The house was filling up. Today, finally, I was ready to clear it all after days of confusion over the time and day of collection.
So, I was up at 5.30am at -2 degrees, having readied cardboard cartons – the local council’s new bins haven’t yet arrived and the old ones are a mess. Here I was waiting for the 6am collection truck that finally arrived only at 7 am, with a bunch of three men and a woman – all jolly and friendly.
I walk up to inform them of my situation without waste-bins. They brush aside my concerns and ask me to get all the garbage I want.
As I get the first carton down, one of the four asks me, “Are you from India?”
Trying to hold on to the plastic covers flowing out, I answer hurriedly in the affirmative. As I turn around to get the next one, he asks, “Which part?”
“Kerala…” and I hurry back. “Oh, Kerala…great…” I hear from behind.
On arrival with the next box – aluminium foil, food wrappers, milk cartons etc – he says, “I’m going there, mate. End of the month.” Meanwhile, the freezing sea breeze is killing me. But I’m amused, nevertheless.
“Nice. Been there before?”
“Nope. But heard a lot and am really excited…”
I smile. And return for the next carton -- and also to get away from the bite even if only for a few seconds.
This time it is thermocol, bubble-wrap, and the like. Light, but large, and even more unwieldy in the breeze…Gayathri’s trying to pick and collect whatever I’m dropping or what’s flying away…
But the man is irrepressible. “This is my schedule…first stop, Condolim,” he pulls out his smartphone to show me.
I’m trying to keep a straight face from behind the bubble wrapper that’s fluttering into my eye.
“Condolim isn’t in Kerala. That’s Goa. But it’s the same region, climate, and topography,” I manage to say with a smile.
His colleague then comes over to cheerfully explain what I need to do with my valuables the next time, which is the next weekend. He helpfully hands me labels for the bins that will arrive from the council shortly. “You’ll have to manage the plastic covers on your own the next time. There’s a public utility around…”
“How far is Condolim from Kerala? You been there?”
I am now strung. What or whom should I focus on? Garbage man explaining garbage, garbage man looking for tourist guide, garbage woman jumping on a cardboard box to flatten it, or the garbage-flutterer breeze…
Luckily, the explanation is done easier – so is the flattening. And I can’t do much about the breeze anyway. The tourist guide slips into me. I give him a brief of what to expect, talking about tropical heat and humidity in -2.
“Dad there’s one more…” Gayathri calls out. Oh, the food waste…
I head back again for the smallest cover and return quickly. “I’m looking forward to the warm sun…the beaches.”
“You have fun…”
Garbage man-going-Goa finally bids farewell because, before Goa there is more garbage. Two weeks more of garbage.
The truck, with its disco lights going crazy non-stop and bringing images from Koyi kahe, Kehta rahe to my mind, moves on.
Go, garbage, Goa!
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