People and Their Trash

balbert General Why are people so protective of their trash? A couple of years back Robin and I were on a dog walk and after the dog took a shit, we picked it up in our plastic bag like good dog owners. We walked on a block or so and then I ran in to the next ally and dropped it into a trash can. Well, by the time we reached the middle of the next block a woman came running up with our bag of poop yelling at us. She did not appreciate us depositing our trash into her trash can. She also made a note that she didn’t have a dog. We apologized and gladly took the poop bag back continued on our walk. At first I could kind of understand were she was coming from but at the same time I couldn’t really understand the big deal. Doesn’t it all end up in the same place? I know that we all have to pay for our trash but it didn’t seem like this small item was going to push her over the edge and cost her an extra fee for too much in her container. Was she worried that my trash was going to react some how with hers? Was the garbage collector guy going to judge her some way for having a poop bag in her trash?… “That’s funny, Mrs. Smith usually doesn’t have poop in her trash. I wonder if something is wrong?”. Recently as I’ve taken my run and/or walked the dog on trash day or the day after, I’ve noticed that people will have their yard waste and recycling cans out in front of their house but not the trash. Personally we keep ours all together and couldn’t imagine having the trash can separate from the rest of the “waste”. So what is it with people? What is so private about our trash that we have to hide it away and keep it untainted by other’s trash? Is it a security thing? As far as the poop goes, we’ve recently purchased a in-ground dog waste digester from Dr. Foster Smith and I’m going to order some digester safe/Flushable poop bags. So from now on the poop won’t be going in yours or my trash and better yet it won’t be commingling at the dump.