According to long-time Geneva dwellers, these hole-in-the-wall chutes are no longer common in apartment buildings; you lug your own muck downstairs to the communal bins in the basement.
Apart from telling us that every item must be placed in a sealed bag with no liquids or cardboard or recyclables permitted, our ancient rubbish chute isn't very generous in how much refuse it'll accept at any one time.
My hand is there for a vague comparison but you get the idea: a 100-box of tissues or a house brick is about all you can fit in the slot.
Or is it? With the use of bin liners and a previously undiscovered strength in 'squishing', I can now wedge in around 12 litres of kitchen rubbish that includes tuna tins, dog food sachets, all manner of vege peelings, cellophane wrap, meat trays, yoghurt tubs, Quark containers, vaccuum cleaner dust and plastic milk cartons.
We're not allowed to use the disposal before 7am or after 10pm because it makes a hell of a clanking noise as it (reluctantly) creaks open and then (noisily) swallows the rubbish, letting it bounce against the metal pipes all the way down, down, down to the basement.
There it plops onto a mini skip which is also the spot for we residents to take our larger gar-bags full of rubbish in person. I'm undeservedly proud to say that I've only had to do that three times so far. I'm STRONG baby!
7 comments:
Sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to be proud about. Wishing you, LC, Sapph and Milly a wonderful Christmas and a magical 2012.
When I was a child, Kath, in one of my aunties' houses there was a laundry chute from the first floor down to the laundry below. I loved the idea of it.
I love the idea of your rubbish chute, however small.
May it relieve the burden of too much rubbish, especially at this time of the year when rubbish amasses at a rate of notes, though not for you I gather. You're off to a restaurant for Christmas lunch.
Enjoy it.
I'm a master crusher myself. For years I crushed things and stacked crushed things inside bigger things etc, thus reducing our waste so the wheelie bin still had space in it and the recycle bin was only half full most of the time. I had the kids helping with this, so you'd think they'd have learnt, but sadly a visit to their house shows boxes and bags of rubbish, all uncrushed, waiting their turn to be stuffed into an overflowing bin. I am NOT doing it for them. They're both 30 something. Even now I'm alone I still crush and compact, so on collection day my bin has one small bag of waste in it.
P.S Merry Christmas!!
Merry Christmas Kath and Family! I dropped the bauble mid December and never got around to sending Christmas cards.
Enjoy your family and better health in 2012 x
I had one of those in a flat I was in in London - bloody terrible thing it was too - we always had to walk our rubbish down - from the seventh floor.
Wishing you all a wonderful Xmas - enjoy a "Cold Christmas" they're the best - sure beats 32 and muggy.
Px
Thanks E-Child and I wish the same for you and your family too.
Elisabeth I also wanted a laundry chute as a kid after seeing one somewhere (long forgotten). I did have to go down to the basement to put in our paper for recycling and THAT was overflowing with giftwrap! Still the concierge would just need to jump on it and it'd flatted down.
River you'd love this chute - it almost says to me, "Go on, see what you can fit in me, I dare ya." Merry Christmas to you, too.
Vanessa, forget writing and posting Christmas cards - I quit about five years ago and haven't missed it all. With phone, FB and email, who needs the bother and to contribute more to the waste paper blowing around?
Thanks Pandora - perhaps I'll use the chute as my arm muscle exerciser - I'll get better and better at crushing. "See this cube? 'Twas my neighbour's car once."
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