Ah Spain!

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[Music]
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Hola, welcome to a Spain. How's it going? It's going BN Tanya A2.
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Oh, very good because we have kind of a joint R Spain today. We do.
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Or kind of one for Zena actually. But we all experienced it which was fun because we were all there for it. Yes. Yes, we
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met yesterday and went to the um the fair in the Turya Gardens which is was
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really really fun and we literally took us till the very last day to actually go
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so it wasn't last minute at all. Um we've been three times this uh this
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month already, but for you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's it's like it's sort of um it was it was really it was
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nice. It's not huge. It's it's it's a nice little fair. It has everything you need. It's got a bunch of rides. It's got, you know, probably very lovely
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food, which we didn't try. Um, and lots of places where you can throw darts at balloons and, you know, just like a
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really good fair experience. It was really, it was perfect. Yeah. Yes. Um, so we had I we did not do very well
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with the games, everybody. No, I did not. Um, no. And Zena Zena like got up to the
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balloons with the darts and you have to get you have to get three in a row and then you can get a prize. So they have
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like big stuffy toys. They have all the same stuff everyone's seen in fairs. All I think they're all done by basically
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the same whether you're in England, America, here, whatever. It's the same, right? It's the same kind of thing. And so
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stuffed toys and then some electronicy things like some headphones and um and
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then some smaller things. I think I mean it was a range, right? It's a range. They got little little toy trucks. They've got headphones. They've
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got like kind of off-market game consoles, you know, off-brand game
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consoles, you know. I I do think actually, now that you mentioned the trucks, I think one of us did hit a dot at a truck.
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That would be that would be Paloma. She she So, I went I got one balloon and Zena
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went and was like pop pop. It was like what? Like three in a row. Perfect. And
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you only get three darts and you have to get three. So, if you miss on your first one, you know, the other two are like pointless, right? What's the point?
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Which is a bit of a bummer. But the nice thing about it was was the guy was like, "Pick anything you want."
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And we're all just like, "What? Anything?" Like the range from tiny little plastic thing all the way to the
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giant stuffed toy. And it's like, "Yeah, it's insane." That was a surprise. That was a surprise
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to me cuz I don't know about your experience, but when I was growing up going to fairs in the States, it was a you had to work
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your way up. If you won, then you could trade in your little Hot Wheel for for a Tonka truck and then the Tonka truck in
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for maybe you could get who knows, right? And then you work your way up to the four foot tall Bugs Bunny, right?
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But that was and $300 later then you got that. Yeah. And I've been to ones where you
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get like little tickets and you can if you stay there for a couple of hours, you collect all your tickets and then you can go to one of the places and with
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your three tickets or 20 tickets depends on, you know, how what level of prize
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you get. And he was just like, "Pick whatever you want." And she looks at me and she's like, "Can I get the headphones?" But we literally picked
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that one because she wanted the stuffed toys, right? We literally picked the one with the stuffed toys she wanted. And
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then when she heard she could get anything, she's like, "I want headphones." I know. She didn't get the stuffed toy. I was like, and I was looking at her
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like, "But the but the stitch doll you wanted isn't there. Why are you It's like what are we doing?" And then
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so she got the headphones and then later, which I thought was really funny and this was like a perfect parenting
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moment from you. She was like, "Can we go back? I want to get the stuffed toy." And you were like, "You already won one.
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You're not winning again at a carnival, right?" Like, that's just not happening. You got to stop the gambling addiction
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in Yeah. nip it in the bud, right? Well, I will say this kind of actually
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in a roundabout way leads us to our episode because what she won will eventually end up in the trash
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soon. Maybe sooner rather than later because we're not sure what the quality of the headphones were.
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Exactly. So, how would you recycle headphones? Because this is what it's all about. If
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you move to Spain, if you're coming from America, if you're coming from England, this is not going to be a surprise. If you're coming from America, the level of
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recycling and managing of your trash is
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quite a procedure. Like when we were living in Alexandria, we were separating out our trash, but then we found out
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that we were recycling our glass for no reason whatsoever cuz they suddenly said, "Oh yeah, we haven't had a glass
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recycling contract for 2 years, but we didn't want to stop anybody from doing it cuz everyone had kind of got into a
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pattern of recycling." And I'm like, I've been sitting there with these damn glass bottles, which are
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not light, like moving and recycling and putting them in the right thing and, you know, getting in arguments with my
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husband over this of something that's not happening. So, yes. And I think back in the states, each
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municipality has there's more stringent, right? Like
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I think they have their rules like I mean in in like when we were in LA, our apartment building had
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three bins. You had a green, a blue, and and then the big metal dumpster. And it was like
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they I was just like, how are they separating all this if everything's going in this blue bin? Are they really separating the paper from the plastic
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here? You know, I think that's a whole other Yeah, I think that's a whole other debate on how well the the result of the
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separating recycling in every country is happening. But we're just going to assume that it's happening everywhere
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here because there's bins for it. And speaking of municipalities, um, this wonderful world.
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Oh, but I wanted to ask your I didn't answer your question. You asked where what bin would her headphones go into.
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Well, her headphones in the city would go into a gray bin. The resto. The resto. There you go.
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Now, we're going to get into the color schemes. Now, we'll get into the color scheme. So, speaking of municipalities was if if
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you live outside of the city, there is a there if you have over 5,000 residents,
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you are required to have a collection system that we're just about to talk about. If you live in a smaller area,
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you might have what um Gitano just explained, which is a rest bin, which is the rest. It's like literally everything
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else. and you might have one of those near you, but then you will need to go
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and take all your recycling to a central point somewhere else and it may not be that close. Where we live, we have the
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rest of bins all up and down our street like very close to us within within two houses, you're going to have a resttor
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bin, but it's it's not your own and you take your trash out and you can walk to it and dump it there. But if you want to
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do further recycling, all our other colored bins are somewhere else in the urbanization and you just you're but
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you're driving dry goods to somewhere else on your way out or something. And
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then I've seen other urbanizations where they don't even have the rest of bins near people's houses and they're driving
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their trash. So you see cars driving like with the trash hanging out of their window and they're driving their trash
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somewhere and that is possibly something people want to look out for. Make sure you have a resttor bin somewhere close
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to where your house is cuz otherwise I'm just going to say ew. I'm just going to say ew.
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Also, yeah, I don't want to be dealing with that. So, I'm very thankful. And I've seen nice neighborhoods where
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that's the case and people in their nice fancy cars are driving their trash to a
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central point in that urbanization. I'm like, no, thank you. So, should we get into the colors
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because it's fun. We can't and we we've we have found out too that um our colors
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don't necessarily align. I mean for the most part I think they do but there are difference from where you live to where
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we live. So let's which there's no explanation for really no we'll get into that
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but for the most part yes so we have for blue I'll go with blue
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is the we have our paper and cardboard which I think is the same right and we have it here
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that is true but you also have to be careful so you know if you have like a pizza box you have cardboard that has
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food on it that cannot go in the blue the blue is for clean paper cardboard stuff that does not have any organic
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matter on it and can be recycled properly as paper and cardboard like that. Right. Right. And the city Oh, I was
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going to say in the city if we have we have these organic bins which is like your food stuff. But if that's if you
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have the paper product with the food on it, it goes in that cuz it's kind of like a composting kind of thing. It's
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it's compostable. Compostables. That's compost compost. And yeah, and we we do our own we have our own compost in
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our garden. So we don't have to deal with that. So we do our own composting
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of our extra cuz we have the luxury of having a space for that. Um so we don't
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need to be doing that with the city bins, but that is also an option. And
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then yellow is for plastics and cans and the the
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tetropacks that like orange juice and milk might come in, right? the the boxed drink things, the
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drink. Well, gpacho actually comes also. It's not always a drink. So, can I just tell my own funny story
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about the yellow bins? So, it took me a while because they switched out our bins
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here. So, first they were just yellow, right? So, they we got new bins after like six, eight months of living here
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and it was just a yellow bin and I knew that was for um uh plastic, right? And I
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knew it was for plastic and the paper boxes. Mhm. But I it had said nothing about metal cans. And so I was just convinced
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the first eight months that metal was not recycled in Spain and I was throwing it in the resto bin. And then when they
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put the new dumpsters on our thing, it had a picture of a can on it. I was like, "Yeah, I thought that was weird
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because metal's a lot easier to recycle than these plastics are." You know, the plastic they have to divide. There's
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like 40 different types of plastics. And I was like, "How are they not recycling metal here? Is there is there or as far
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as the eye can see? It is really helpful when they put the sign on, right? And that wasn't the
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case. So, we had signs on the all the recycling ones, but we didn't have signs on the rest ones. They just now put a
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sign on them literally last week that says Resta, but that's like very very new. So, there is a certain amount of um
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general understanding that is expected. And I think they're realizing that that's maybe starting to dwindle a
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little bit and they're starting to actually sign put signposts on these things a little bit. Um, so that's the
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yellow. Um, brown brown. So, and brown here is the organic
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matter. And is it the same for you? Yeah. So, that's food organic, you know, that's something that we don't use a lot
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of because we have our own compost, but that would be sort of Yeah. your organic
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everything. And then we have the we have green and it's a special shape which is
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for glass. So the igloo is it with a hole. So you
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can't get like a bag into this. You can only get bottles in and they go in and smash it for the if it's just been
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emptied. They go in and they smash at the bottom. So you can kind of tell how much people have been drinking that
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weekend. That's the fun part. Like that's the fun part is when it crashes in there. Yeah.
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You know, and I've been there where people have just left. I mean, you have like a weekend in especially I mean for
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us up here anyway, you know, where people are coming for the weekends sometimes and they live in the city and
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after a weekend I mean that igloo we need like four igloos after that and
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because there was a lot of wine and beer bottles and they're just now stacked up outside and yeah. Well, I mean, I will
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say you so we live on the the third floor and when the when the the truck comes to pick up the bottles, which is
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like during the day, and you hear it cuz it's loud because you can hear it going down the street and the bottles crashing, but it's in like a it's like
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in a one of those like construction dumpsters. That's what they're dumping it into here. Like it's on a semi like a
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flatbed truck, but with you know those like kind of open dumpsters that they use at construction sites. That's not like a regular trash truck.
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No, it's like this flatbed open flatbed thing that they're dumping it into. And when you see that come by, you're like,
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"Wow, they drink a lot here because that's a lot." I mean, that thing is filled up with wine bottles and that's
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happening once or twice a week that that thing's coming around. So, yeah. And I will say that probably also
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explains why ours is at the entrance. That's the only trash we have that's at the entrance to the urbanization cuz
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that thing is loud and you don't want that truck driving through the urbanization either. So, they'd be nice
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enough to put that one all the way at the front. So, if I want, I can trash my
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regular trash outside my house. I have to drive to a a central um place to do
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all the other recycling and then the glass is on the way out. I always thought the glass was on the way out because people were using it so much
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they wanted to encourage them to just dump their glass on the way out of the urbanization. But now that you're
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explaining it, I'm like, "Oh, it's because it's so loud." It's not because they finished their bottle of wine before they went to work.
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Tanya, right? Drinking while driving and then dumping the bottle in the thing on the
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way out. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So, that's the only one for us that's like separated
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like that. So, you did I hear you say that it's a special green. Does that mean you have another green bin?
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Oh, yeah. So, for us So, you said that your rest is gray.
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Yes. Our resta is green, but it's like a dark green. And it's also a regular
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looking trash bin, not the igloo. Okay. So, and then they, like I said, they
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just put a sign that says rest on it. But I will say when we first moved here, there was quite a bit of unsolicited
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advice from neighbors on how to use the trash system. Okay. Probably rightly so, because it's like
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we had never experienced anything quite this meticulous. So, I will say some of it was probably the first person and the
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second person it was probably like thank you and then the rest of them it was like okay the other people have already got to me like maybe you can text each
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other and let them know that we've been told but you know you're not supposed I mean you in this rest bin it's restster
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but it's not for everything you cannot put furniture like broken chairs um any
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you cannot put anything else in there it is just for the all the rest of the things
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that cannot be put in one of these other recycling things. So, it doesn't leave a ton of things. I mean, really. Um, but
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it's not like in America where you just throw everything into a trash except maybe your glass and then it all goes. I
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mean, you're separating out the paper and everything, right? I mean, I mean, I will say you look at the rest of here and it's got a
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lot of things that can be separated out, but you know, we're only human and we can only do so much, right? We all make
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a little effort is better than no effort. So, yeah, but if you live in a but if you live in a neighborhood like we do with
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houses where you know all your neighbors, they know what you've done because we have
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I know what you did with your trash. Yeah. We have a trash bin every, let's say, three houses. So, you only have
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maybe three houses or four at most putting trash into one bin. So, they
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know it wasn't them or their other neighbor, then it's probably you, right? So, you know, in the city, you
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take your stuff down, you're putting it in a dumpster. No one's nobody's much the wiser, you know.
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Um, and then I would say for our garden for our garden stuff, um, which I think
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is really nice because my my mom in England has a bin that she has to take
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all of her garden clippings to, which I think is a tremendous amount. Branches and
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Yeah. Like if you're doing Yeah. all the if you cut your grass and you don't want to leave the grass on the grass like and
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you're picking up you got to take that down. So for us any garden stuff that we do trimmings goes out on the street in
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front of our house and you can bag all the pine needles that you're you know and the leaves and stuff that you're
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picking up those go in bags and big branches can go on their own on the side of the street outside your house and every Thursday there's the garden truck
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that comes and picks up all the gardening things and that's Can I ask a question?
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I'm gonna ask it anyway. I don't need your permission. I'm gonna ask a question. You don't. I don't have to answer it. So
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So with these trucks coming by with the gardening, is there like an opposite side of the street parking? Is there a
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day you're not supposed to park on the street so the the truck can come pick up the stuff? No, they're they just are I
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mean we make the effort not to completely cover like completely block where we put gardening stuff with our
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cars, but we okay most people have enough room in front of their house where we live that they can
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park a car out front or some people park it inside and still have enough room to put all your gardening stuff that they can get
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to. Okay. And they are like they'll take. So there's a certain amount. This is again
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where your neighbors will get involved if you have somebody come and maybe or
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you maybe cut a lot of stuff from your garden. So we had like the trees cut between our between our house and our
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neighbor's house. And the person that came and did that took all of that trim trimmings away and
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took it to a recycling center which we'll talk about later. But they what a
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lot of people will do is have someone do that and they leave it all outside of their house and then all the neighbors will get up in arms on the WhatsApp
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group about like you're not supposed to do this. It's too much. The the truck's not designed for for taking this much
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stuff and D there's like a respectable amount of garden waste that you can put outside your house and the rest of it
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needs to go to the eco park. Yeah. So that you have to get there or arrange to get there like you have to get like or
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the tree trimmers would arrange for it to get there if there's Should we get into the eco park?
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Sure. I mean, well, I think while we're talking bids, let's get over the two. Now, I don't know if you have them
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there, um, where you live, but here in the city, they're not. So, our trash bins are on in the middle of every block
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and they're on every intersection, at least in my neighborhood, because it's a grid. It's a grid system. So, it's easy
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to have it like that. But, I would say every couple blocks, we have bins for
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oil waste and we have bins for uh recycling clothes. And it's not for charity. They recycle the fibers, which
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I thought was interesting. I thought we were giving them the charity. I thought we were doing good, but I think we've talked about before there's not a lot of
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like charity things to donate things to. So, it's not for that, but it's they actually recycling the fabric, which I
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thought was kind of Oh, that's very interesting. I feel like I've seen a lot of different types of um
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donation what would what we would consider donation things for clothes. And I think some of them might be, but
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then you'd have to check that they have some kind of charity written on them for it. And the other ones I'm sure like you
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said that sounds I hadn't heard that but yeah that makes sense as well. It's just this little orange metal thing
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and it's got one of those like kind of lazy Susan kind of openings and if you put too many clothes in it won't
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do it. And so yeah. So we have the same thing. So for us we have all of the the basic
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the basic trash bins that we talked about. The blue, the yellow, the brown, not the gray because you have the gray,
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the darker green, and the glass green. We have all of those inside our
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organization, but these recite these places for for putting clothes and things like that are kind of like down
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the street somewhere like in the in the town in various places in town. So, you just have to find out where those are.
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And the other thing that's variable around town or in a store are um battery
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and light bulb recycling spots. So, those you can find in various places somewhere close to you. I don't know
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where you have them, but they sometimes media market has batteries and and consume has batteries and light bulbs.
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Sometimes some of these shops have those things. So for us, it's I can never remember
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which store has it. And so it's like that's the thing. I think little has it and I and and then
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some some of the merkad like I don't remember which one I can bring things to and then I never remember. But thank
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thankfully nowadays with all of our rechargeable things, we're not going through batteries like we used to. So they stack up for a while.
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Yeah, you got the LED lights and rechargeable stuff. It's not so big. And then I was in a town where they had like city ones where they had a a spot in the
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town center and various places on the street where you could throw in batteries and stuff. So I thought that was kind of cool. So that you know it
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does it does it does kind of work. And speaking of the oil,
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I haven't and I I haven't done it, so I don't know, but I've seen bottles of oil outside
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people's houses, and I have to assume that that is for people for someone to be coming and picking it up versus
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people taking it. You were saying there's a bin for that. Is a bin? Yeah, ours is like It's a bin and you
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put it in It looks almost identical to the clothing bin. Okay. But um but uh it it kind of
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operates. It's got a kind of a lazy susan opening that you know you move it and then it goes into a hole. So you you put it in you have to put your oil in a
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plastic bottle. You know it's like you reuse like the oil the bottle it came in or a different kind of plastic bottle
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and then you and then you dump that plastic bottle and that's okay. So they're relying on I mean you don't dump it. I mean the
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whole bottle goes in the thing. You don't have to like pour it out. So, they're relying on people closing that properly in the whole inside, not just
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being a vat of old oil, I guess. Oh, of the bottle itself that you're
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putting in. Yes. Yes. I hope you would not using some sort of flip top, you know.
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Yeah. So, I've seen that here. When I first moved, I'm like, why are people leaving bottles of urine outside their houses? Cuz I wasn't really familiar
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with how much like deep frying people were doing here. Well, if that's the color of their urine, I'd be more concerned about their
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health. Well, well, some of it looks I mean the ones I've seen look almost like
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new oil. Like I don't know. Anyway, so I I think what what is possibly happening,
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but I can't confirm this is that people are leaving it outside their house on a for a certain day or for a certain
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pickup that they know is happening that I've never heard of. [Music]
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I Well, fried food is a is a very popular item here, right? I mean, I feel like I see much more deep frying
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instruing instructions on on products I buy from
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the grocery store than I remember ever seeing in the States, right? Like it's Oh, yeah. You know, air fryer, oven, and
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oil. And I feel like oil is I mean, we don't deep fry like they do here. They
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are expecting you to have a deep fryer on your counter here. And I will say we don't deep fry here. We had a deep fryer that we bought in
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America and we did a couple of fish and chips things and then with that like it got old. But I will say I didn't know
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what to do with that oil. Like there didn't seem to be a system for getting rid of oil like there is here. So there
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is here a system for that. I don't know exactly what it is if you're not in the city but it is there is a system for it.
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So I'm grateful for that because it's not when you have all that oil that's it's really
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yeah it's hard to know what to do with that. It's it's bad trash. You can't put it like this. It's really bad trash.
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Oh my goodness. So, you were going to mention something that I do not have to worry about, but I think a lot of people do, which is this
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eco park, which is not a it's not a um Costa Rican um mountain experience.
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So, when I when I f when we first moved, we were driving up to like see the like the house and there was a sign. It said
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eco park this way. And I was like, we're near a park. like maybe it's a water slide park or something. And I was like
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super excited. And so we just took the detour and like drove down there and I'm like that's a recycling center. Like
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that is really not as fun as I was hoping that was going to be. But
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so you're like is it like the seated like vacation? We're coming up to Wally World and But it wasn't Wally World.
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It was exactly like that. It was very disappointing cuz we did move out into the middle of with not very nothing
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really out here. So, it was quite nice to think that maybe something had been put out here that would be fun. Um, but
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what that is for, speaking from before about the the trimmings, you know, when we had the trees cut, that was a lot of
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extra trimmings that could not be put on the street because that's not what those garden trucks are for. So, and when we
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had the our kitchen demolished as well, same thing. All the tile and everything was put into bags and that had to be
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taken down to the to the Eco Park. So, what they have is you go in, there is somebody that mans it and it's has
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hours, so it's not open all the time. So, maybe just during the day, um, you
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can go in minus the siesta probably. It probably opens at 7:30, has a siesta, and it's open later. But they have skips
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for everything. So, tile, like all the all the things that, you know, glass, tile, you know, all this construction
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material, whatever. But also a place for batteries and light bulbs. So, you can literally take anything there. and they
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have a place for it and then it's organized and it's then recycled from that one place. So, it's really really
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cool. So, yeah. So, we could like we took down so the gardener that had
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cut down all of the trees, not cut them down, but trim them just took all that. And I think if you have a business, you
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can get a license to dump more stuff there. Otherwise, if you're just a normal human being, you can probably go
25:39
there with a normal amount of stuff and then you got to spread it out over various days if you have a lot of something. question about this now. Do
25:46
you have to pay when you go to put your trash or is it free? Because like in the states you have to pay for, you know, to
25:53
to these kinds of things. Yeah. Electronics and all that stuff. You have to pay a fee to put that there. And then
25:59
like some of the like in LA they had like twice a year you could do it for free. You could come down to these
26:05
places for So, we had when we moved and we were really like purging all our stuff and the stuff that we wanted
26:11
needed to get rid of that we were we went down to a to a some trash place and
26:16
we didn't have to pay, but we did have to go in say what it was and then they gave us a skip to put it in and and that
26:22
type of thing. But here, no, you don't have to pay, but you are limited on what how much you can use. I don't know if you have a business and you're maybe you
26:29
can pay to do more every day and then maybe you get a tax deduction on it or something because there's something
26:35
there. Someone did explain to me once that you can get like I think a permit for it or something. So because it's
26:41
huge skips so it is it has the capabilities to take in construction um
26:48
you know materials and things like that. Okay. Which I think is so that's so that's good. So I mean we have an eco park
26:53
that's really close to us which is very convenient. I don't think they're they're quite far apart, I think. And
26:59
they also have um mobile ones which are really cool. And you I don't know, you
27:04
probably don't need those in the city, but in the town where we live, they'll have a mobile eco park pop up every now
27:12
and again, maybe once a month or something outside the consume. And
27:17
they are like a um a container, one of the containers that they've converted so
27:22
that the front opens and then they have like trash bins in there so you can like roll up and probably get rid of, you
27:28
know, batteries and light bulbs and maybe some not huge amounts of stuff, but maybe some of those extra things
27:34
that have got kind of piled up in your house, you can take them. And will it take electronics like old TVs and expensive things?
27:39
Probably. I don't probably not big things. Probably not old TVs. I think they're taking they're not taking large
27:45
items. So large items here, I don't know how they work in the city, but they probably work differently.
27:51
Let's compare notes. What do you do if you want to get rid of a sofa? Let's say it's not going to be donated. It's whatever whatever or TV or
27:58
something. So here you call there's a number you call or you do it online. Um, sorry. You
28:05
you go online and you have to get a code and you write that on a piece of paper and you tape that piece of paper to your
28:11
item and you leave that on the sidewalk. So, you can't just leave stuff on the sidewalk. There has to be a code. So, I
28:18
think that's so the the trash people know that they have to come down this you the special trash people come down the street knowing that they're looking
28:24
for an old grandfather clock at this address with this number on it otherwise
28:29
they won't pick it up. Now, mind you, I didn't realize what that was. I was like, "Why are people writing these numbers on them?" Like, "This is so
28:36
weird to me." And then someone told me, "Yeah." Well, and it is because then
28:42
what you'll find out is the trash never collected the thing because someone else has already dumpster dived it and taken
28:47
it home, right? Like there's some good finds. You know, if you live in a city and people are getting rid of a, you
28:52
know, a thing they don't like, everyone's trash is someone else's treasure kind of moment. Is this is this
28:57
um is this a particular time of the month or is it like whenever you want you any day?
29:03
Yeah, any day. I mean now I don't know if like when you put the code in it says we're doing it on Wednesday do that. I
29:09
don't know cuz I've never put anything out but I have seen stuff any time of the week like there it hasn't I haven't
29:15
noticed like oh Saturday the sidewalks filled. No, because I don't see it that
29:20
often, right? It's very rare. But I did see which I thought was interesting, a computer printer, and I was like, "Oh,
29:26
is that how you get rid of electronics, too?" I've really only seen like large like sofas and, you know, furniturey
29:32
type items. And I saw this little sad printer there. And I go I was like, "Oh, I guess that's how you get rid of a
29:38
printer." So now I know. Now you know. I think you can do anything. So here it kind of works the
29:43
same way, but we do that. We have an app for the city and you can upload a picture and tell you, you know, it
29:51
already knows where your address is. So, you just upload a picture and say, "I'm leaving and then it basically is like this is being left outside my house."
29:58
But I do believe that and it's for anything. I mean, you as long as you take a picture of it, they'll come pick
30:04
it up and it's like you said, a special truck that's going to come pick it up if someone doesn't take it first. But I
30:10
think they only do it once a month. But I've never been able to figure out. This is another one of those kind of like
30:17
Spanish things that I know it's happening and everyone else seems to know when it's happening, but I don't
30:22
know where they're posting this information because it seems like every month they're doing it. And it seems that you could also just
30:30
when they do the if you know it's happening on the 28th of August, you can also just put stuff out and they'll come
30:36
take it because it's over it's all the oversized things basically. It's the things that don't and you don't have to put it on the app.
30:42
Are you still doing it? This is I'm I'm not sure. I think if you're going to do it, put it on the app anyway because then they know. But I'm
30:49
sure they're picking up other stuff that hasn't been put on the app because everybody knows that the 28th of August, let's say, is the day that it's
30:55
happening because I've seen like on certain days a lot of stuff that is h
31:02
that is being put out. So like where we live there was a date in Alexandria where they were like this is happening
31:09
on this date and everybody would put stuff out and it just be and it became also a time for everybody to drive
31:14
around and pick up other people's stuff that they wanted. Right. Because they were doing it on a certain day it became
31:20
a really great way to get secondhand furniture and things. Um Right. Right. So if it is organized it's kind of
31:26
useful. Um but I never people with the big trucks. Mhm. We have those del the big trucks
31:32
picking stuff up. Yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of the stuff is good. I will say here when I see the stuff outside, it's usually really old.
31:39
Like the the it's and when I say old, I mean old in style as well. I mean it's
31:44
like somebody's finally getting rid of the bed head that great grandma had, you know? Like it's not from 1962. It's
31:51
Yeah. Or maybe even earlier, right?
31:56
I've never seen that many great things on the road that I'm like whereas in Alexandria I was like people are putting out good stuff here. Maybe this could be
32:03
a nice side table, you know? Right. Well, I did get I will say I did
32:08
get a good end table that my friend I was having a cocktail party and my friend Melissa was coming over and she
32:14
just brought it up. She goes, "Don't you need an end table for your bedroom?" And it's been perfect ever since.
32:20
Well, maybe there's better stuff in the city. Let's go with that. I wouldn't be surprised. Well, I would say better
32:26
stuff if she found an item. I would say she found an item because I I have seen some hideous things on the corners as
32:32
well. Yes, there's always Yeah, I mean, and some of it's just horrendous and just needs, but it is a good way. So, if you are like
32:38
needing to get rid of things, that's how you get rid of the oversized stuff basically. It's either Yeah. online in
32:43
the app or there's some way a certain day that you can put it out. So, um and so when do your trucks come?
32:51
Because in in the city, they pick up the trash in the middle of the night at like 2:00 a.m. And God and
32:56
No, they can't do that here. Yeah. You hear that you the trucks are coming along except for the bottles. That's happening in the middle of the
33:02
day because that would just be horrendous. But at no, it's like at 2 in the morning, you hear the trucks come by
33:07
and at 3:00 in the morning they're washing the sidewalks in the middle of the night. Like that's kind of how the city is like getting cleaned. I rarely
33:13
see them washing the sidewalks during the day. I've seen it happen, but it's at night. You know, I might be a little
33:18
bit of a night owl and I'll hear the truck and then I'll see the people coming with the with the water trucks to wash the streets and sidewalks. Um,
33:25
I love that they do that. Yeah, me too because people don't necessarily clean up after their dogs. So, it is
33:31
nice to know that you get washed. We have the trash the the garden truck
33:36
comes once a week on Thursdays and the other truck comes at least every other day if not every day. So, it's very
33:43
regular. Yeah. Um, and then, and I don't know who's doing it because I've never seen anyone do it, but I've seen the
33:49
water from it. It's somebody comes around and cleans the bins. And I don't know if they're coming
33:55
around inside and out. Yeah. Just like I mean, I just I see the soapy water and I I don't think it's a
34:01
neighbor cuz I but I haven't gone around to like all the things to see that
34:07
they've all been done. So, I think there's also a city truck that comes around and has like water and they're
34:13
they're spraying it. And then we do have a street cleaning little truck that comes around every now and again. They
34:19
rarely do our street for some reason. I I don't know why, but the streets clean, so I think that's not really an issue up
34:27
here because you don't have a lot of people walking around on the streets just dumping things around, you know?
34:33
Right. Yeah. I mean, this this is a very um I mean, Spain is a very they're very into their cleanliness here, right? The
34:39
streets are washed. I don't see you don't really except for the the dog doodoo. You don't see people just
34:44
throwing rappers on the street, you know? It's it's I feel like you don't see that kind of just loose trash except
34:50
when there's a fireworks or something, people just leave everything on the ground because that's what you do here.
34:56
And as soon as the crowds left the masceta or the festival or whatever the thing is, within 30 minutes 500 cleaners
35:05
have come in, sweeped it all up, right? And it's gone. And you're like, how the heck did that happen?
35:10
How I mean, I can't even imagine I can't imagine how that happens. And then I've seen some trash bins that are in the
35:15
farm roads that we take sometimes where it looks like one of these trash bin areas is has become a place where people
35:22
are coming. they must be coming from other areas and dumping more stuff at these bins because it's not near their
35:27
home and some of it's like oversized and you're like oh my god that's a disaster and then I drive back like you know the
35:34
next day and it's completely cleaned up. So the city is taking care of it even though that trash bin is clearly being
35:41
misused for extra things because it's in the middle of nowhere and no one can see anyone dumping anything. So, it's like,
35:47
yeah, they're misusing it, but the city's still on it, like, you know, for for the what it can do. Um, so I' I've
35:54
been very impressed with with how much trash is picked up and and all of that
36:00
in my experience. So, there's also I want to talk about there's a thing that you have seen that
36:06
I have not seen and I live here and you don't have to find this thing. Let me
36:13
tell you, I will take you I will take you on an excursion, but we'll have to get a copy and sit there and wait for it
36:18
to happen. So, I was walking my brother was in town with his family and so we
36:23
were walking um somewhere and I don't know exactly somewhere near the
36:29
adjudimento square and I this is obviously something and I did go online before this just to check that this is
36:36
something that is happening all over Spain and in other countries in Europe and I think it's really cool. So, we were walking by and there were these
36:42
really tiny little almost mailbox looking trash bins and a series of them
36:47
like this is again this is your I think they were all metal but they were colorcoded for like trash and we you
36:53
know paper and you know this but they were tiny and we were in the middle of the city center and we were just like
36:59
and then we looked at it. I don't know why it caught our eye to be honest. We're not like walking around looking for trash bins, but it was like it
37:05
looked like something was happening on the ground underneath it and we we were like those are really tiny trash bins
37:11
for such a for that space, such a busy area, right? And a side note is they don't have trash
37:17
bins in that area because that's the I remember when we were there and you the first time you went there with the masc
37:24
people are leaving trash everyone. Can't you take it out? I was like but there are no trash bins here because of I you
37:29
know terrorist activities and those kinds of things. They don't want where crowds gathered the trash. So, this might be their solution.
37:35
Yeah. And I have to be honest, I don't know where it was, but it was somewhere where we were touristing doing the like
37:42
we have family in town. Let's go visit these places. And now I'm sort of getting better at like here's our we
37:47
have our own little walking tour that I take everybody on that kind of hits all the good spots. And so we were somewhere in that area. And then and my brother
37:54
was like, you know, like, oh, it looks like it opens. And I'm like, well, that can't be what happens. And yeah, it does
38:00
look like it opens from underneath. And then we went I think we had lunch, we visited something. We were coming back and the moment that we walked by those
38:07
things, the trash truck was there and these trash they opened, the floor
38:12
opened up. There were massive like skips underneath that picked up the skip and took all the stuff out of it and I was
38:18
like that is really cool. So you have this very small like shootute area that you can put stuff in and it's going into
38:24
a massive skip underneath. So that means that and then when I looked online that I I can't confirm this is how it works
38:31
that there's a sensor where it knows when it's getting you know full and they
38:36
send the track the trash truck to go pick it up. I think that whole situation is super clever
38:42
and I it was it was very impressive because you don't have a lot going on above the street but you have a lot
38:48
going on underneath and it means that the trash bins aren't getting overflowed. Right. Right. or and and and taking up
38:55
the I mean, it makes sense for there because I will say it was a little disconcerting when we first visited
39:02
Spain and we were in an Airbnb and I was like, well, where do we put our trash cuz there's no trash and we were in like
39:08
a larger building that from an American standard would have like a trash shoot, right? And I was like, where's where do
39:14
we put the trash? Gosh, I had to call the guy and he was like the like and then he you know texted me like I'm the idiot that I am which was there's those
39:21
bins out front of the building but I'm like in America you wouldn't take them down the street from your apartment building right so it was very odd to me
39:28
and now it's part of my second nature I don't see them anymore but they were
39:34
like when I first came here they are unsightly to see these dumpsters at every block and every corner like it's
39:40
just if you're not used to it now I don't see them and they're great there they are and you if you've got if you're
39:45
walking down the street with a can in in in 45 ft there will be a recycling place to put your can. So, you're into it, but
39:52
it is it is a little bit of a culture shock when you come here because if you're not used to seeing bins everywhere, you know, and
39:57
I will say what nice about it, other than what you said, which is the accessibility to it, is that they are
40:03
they are emptied regularly. So, it's not you have the bins, but they're not overflowing and and
40:10
right at like they're very well taken care of. And we where we lived before here, which was more of a town, they they had built
40:17
like a like kind of a wooden bay for it. So that the because that's the other thing is in some areas you've got hills
40:23
and sometimes so up here where we live like these trash bins are rolling down the street. They're all on wheels for some reason.
40:30
And I don't know why that must make it must make it they must need them on wheels for the trash truck to pick them
40:35
up or something. But I don't know why. Yeah, because they have to dump it. Yeah, but why do they need They have to move it into the street to
40:41
dump it. Oh, I have to move it to dump it. Well, so we get we get very high winds up here
40:47
sometimes because we're up on the hill like very very high winds and sometimes wind and rain comes together and it's
40:52
like you are living in that part of the Wizard of Oz, right? and and that's
40:57
happening and these and I'm always thinking cuz we're a little bit where our car parks a little bit on a hill and
41:03
there's a trash bin at the top and that trash bin has come down the hill quite a few times and and it goes and hangs out
41:09
with the other trash bins at the end of the street, right? They're having a little Yeah, that's scary. They should have those like a little thing in the road,
41:15
right? A little hump to stop that. Yeah. Well, I suppose oh what I was going to say about that
41:20
the thing that you saw the underground thing that makes sense and is that because that is the tourist center of
41:26
town they probably had that for the aesthetic reasons because it would be um not very Instagrammable moment to have
41:33
these big dumpsters in the middle of the town square. So that could be another reason why that's a good reason. But I did read
41:39
online about these things and I and I don't know where this exists but there are other places where they have created
41:46
a trash system where it goes underground and then they have like suction pipes
41:53
that actually take the trash from there to a central place. So they don't even have to go in and and take away the
42:00
trash from there. And I I would imagine that would only work with the recycling things. I don't think that would work with other That's that's very City of Tomorrow. I
42:06
think I saw that at the Epcot Center in the one of their rides right back. But apparently that's happening
42:12
somewhere in Spain or in Europe. So they're kind of this, you know, this is probably an experiment. Like you said,
42:18
this is not something you could probably do everywhere, but in certain areas, certain areas that are very busy to have
42:24
this kind of system I thought was really, really clever. Um, and we wouldn't have noticed if we hadn't
42:30
walked by when they were emptying it either. Right. Yeah. So I was very impressed. Now I'm going to be on a huntout for it. I'm going to
42:37
hunt out. I will find it. Well, now that I know what I'm looking for, I will I will, you know, I mean,
42:44
they're like metal bins that look like kind of look like shootsish. And there's there were like three or four of them in
42:50
a row. So they obviously had the recycling, you know, they would have had probably the the blue for paper, the
42:58
yellow for the plastic and cans, and then maybe a the regular one for the rest or something like that.
43:04
I would imagine maybe three or four. I don't think they're going as detailed as clothing and oil and and tree
43:11
clippings in the town square. I think they're just managing beer cans mostly and ice cream cones and cups is
43:18
what I would be imagining pretty much. Yeah. But it is nice water. We've all been
43:24
places where the the center of a city, especially a a touristy place is just
43:30
ungodly with trash overflowing in trash bins because it's just impossible to keep up, right? And right, it's nice to
43:37
have a different system for that, I think. Um, so I'm generally very impressed with with how they do trash
43:43
and recycling in Spain. It's it's impressive and and like you said at the beginning, the idea of taking your trash
43:49
sort of out of your house and having to take it down the street or across the street seems like, oh my god. But you
43:54
really get used to that and it's actually kind of nice not having your own trash bins. I would actually go as far as to say as a as living in a house.
44:01
Well, it keeps the rodents out. I mean, for you it keeps the rodents out of your yard, right? You don't have this thing
44:06
where raccoons and rodents can We have four cats. Trash can. I think we have that covered,
44:14
right? But you know, well, I don't know about raccoons. That That's a fight. Or possums. I don't think we have psums or raccoons
44:20
here. I think the most we might have is what would we have? Well, you got wild boores.
44:25
We got wild boores. I don't think anything's keeping the wild boars out if they want to come because they're getting awfully close to our
44:30
urbanization around here. We can see where they dig up like all around that like where all the places that we go
44:36
out. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. Um but for the Yeah, I think for the
44:42
when we were living in Alexandria, you know, we had a we had a house, we had to we did our trash, we had to take we had
44:47
to roll those things out every Thursday or whatever and a different the recycling one went out on a different
44:53
day. So that was something that everybody had to take on as a job, you know, which is not a big thing. But then
44:58
when you forget, they don't take your trash if you haven't rolled your bin out. So, right,
45:04
you know, that's a And if you're out of town, you got to make sure someone's doing it for you if you've left trash before. So, that's a
45:09
whole thing. Then the raccoons will have Yeah, they will. And so, that's a whole thing you don't have to do, which I think is kind of nice. Um, so I've been
45:16
impressed. I mean, I'm a fan of it now. You just got to do it. We leave the house, you take a bag down with you, you know,
45:23
it's done, buddy. Yeah, I think that covers it. Any other
45:28
any other crazy trash stories? I can't think of any. I think we've talked enough trash
45:34
about trash. Trash trash. Yeah.
45:39
I mean, it it might not be the most um interesting episode, but I think we've made it fun.
45:45
I do wish that I had known this before I moved. I will say this is going to be on that list because it was a lot to learn
45:52
about and it and where we were living if you don't have sort of if if everything's not sort of posted with a
45:58
sticker of what's in it, you you have to start by managing it in your house. So, you can't just like go
46:04
out to the trash and start putting things in different bins. You have to like you have to organize it in your
46:09
house first and take it out like that. So, if you don't know what's going on, it's like a little mind-blowing to try
46:14
and organize it. We have We have three trash receptacles under our kitchen sink for this exact reason.
46:23
Oh, yes. Well, Tanya, until the next time. Until next time. Bye.
46:32
Hey, can't get enough of us? Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Ospain Podcast and on our website.com, which we will be
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updating with exciting new things as we grow. We would love for you to message us with any topics you would like to
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hear about. See you next time. Bye. [Music]