A new meaning to ‘roll up the rim’. /SEAN CONWAY
I watched a supper hour television news broadcast where the topic of discussion was Manitoba’s crumbling infrastructure. The news feature focused on potholes.
There was a plug from CAA Manitoba to enter Manitoba’s Worst Roads survey. Their website commentary says, “It’s more important than ever to vote in Worst Roads and help make infrastructure an issue in the upcoming provincial election.”
I didn’t need a rash of asphalt blisters as evidence of crumbling infrastructure. The municipal garbage can in the picture has greeted me for the past five weeks at the bus stop of my morning commute. The residence that face this eye sore surely have heard the slogan roll over the rim or was it roll up the rim?
I pondered knocking the refuse container over and spilling the contents into the street. My thought at the time was, if I empty the can into the street, the city would come and clean it up. After careful consideration two reasons came as a deterrent to my contemplated action.
First, the civil disobedience of knocking over garbage cans is something I left behind in my youth. I had learned a hard lesson growing up. You got away with very little in a small town. Someone saw Mrs. Conway’s boy up to know good and when she learned about it, believe me, I paid for my transgression.
The second discouragement is the construction of the curb side garbage receptacles. The design of the concrete constructed municipal refuse containers keeps them well anchored to the ground from their sheer weight. A hernia or severe back strain was in order if I attempted to spill the can.
Instead of physical action I mulled over some cerebral solutions while waiting.
Reading a commuter paper there was mention of Take Pride Winnipeg Litter Index. The article suggested the city is messier this year than last year.
The Take Pride Winnipeg website content is stale with only 2015 content. Seems not only the garbage cans have been left unattended. Like tulips I guess the site maintainers haven’t yet poked their heads above the ground for 2016 season.
Here’s a thought: use municipal garbage cans that can be emptied by the same resource that collects residential garbage. I figured I was being impatient. Maybe next week there was a crew scheduled to empty the can.
It was a good thing my bus came. My next thought was to create a pothole filling, garbage collection vehicle funded by Dragon’s Den. Who knows what I would have thought of after that idea?
