Czech rubbish collection

In front of our house gate is the dustbin. It is old and rusty with holes in the bottom and was inherited from the previous owners. This vital piece of kit is the source of much amusement and bemusement.

In order to get your bin emptied, you have to go to the Horice Na Sumava Town Hall and register, so I recently went with a Czech friend to sort out the bin. We arrived at the Town Hall down an alley off the main square to be greeted with a sign that the offices were not open on that day. I was ready to turn away, when my Czech friend said "Let's see if they are open." and went in. The place looked empty but in one room to the right we found two women in an office. They knew me at once - the news of the British woman from the village had proceeded me. They looked at me with interest and smiles.

There was no problem with sorting the bin for me. I paid an embarrassingly small sum, which probably costs more to collect than I actually paid, and they gave me a sticker, like a car tax disc, which you stick on the bin to show the dustbin men that you have paid. It would be emptied once a week, the women explained, on Monday. I went home, stuck the sticker on the bin and put in a load of rubbish ready for collection. Of course the dustmen did not come on Monday, but several days later they appeared with a lorry, that was more like a skiptruck than a British dustbin lorry. As far as I can observe there is no regular day for rubbish collection at all. And when the lorry does turn up I have to run out the house and point at the bin to get it emptied. I have seen my neighbour do the same. But hey, the rubbish goes and that is the main thing.

In towns, lots of people don't bother with this bin-registering lark (probably because it is more expensive), but pop out quietly in the dead of night and deposit carefully wrapped rubbish in the public litter bins, which are emptied regularly. As my punster of a husband put it recently "It's bin a real learning curve, I can tell you."