Watch those 5th Wednesdays!

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[As usual, click on the image to enlarge.]

Let's give a hand to the good folks at the PMUA!

They've done something so simple, so elegant and so...useful, I think even their diehard critics will be impressed.

They have taken the unpredicatability out of the recycle cycle. Those of you who enjoy putting out papers only to find out when you get home from work that it was the co-mingles day need read no further. For the rest of you, read on.

It seems that beginning in 2006 -- it's eleventh year -- the PMUA had decided to standardize the recycle pickup schedule: 1st and 3rd Wednesdays are co-mingled (cans, bottles, plastic, glass) and 2nd and 4th are paper. 5th Wednesdays? No pickup.

Every year, I have extended the previous year's cycle onto the large refrigerator calendar when it goes up in late December. Most years the printed PMUA calendar arrived long after the year got under way.

This year was no exception. (In fact, I cannot recall receiving a 2006 schedule -- that doesn't mean it wasn't sent.) So on the 5th Wednesday in March, I dutifully put the co-mingles out -- along with most of the rest of my neighbors. And came home for dinner only to find the bin unemptied.

A quick call to the PMUA's Recycle line explained all. Well, nearly all.

The recorded voice explained why there was no pickup on the 5th Wednesday, but not a clue as to when the next pickup for co-mingles was.

So, on Monday morning, I called and inquired if there was a printed calendar and could I drop by and pick it up. Yes. And yes.

Now I'll know what to tell my next door neighbor when he calls on Tuesday evening to see "what goes out tomoorrow."

Better yet, I've scanned it and put it up on the blog for all to see, print and save -- in case you mislaid your original, or never got one in the first place.

Don't say I never gave you anything!

-- Dan Damon

Keywords: PMUA