Garbage pickup

Something I’ve noticed since I first arrived in France but haven’t yet remarked upon, is the system of garbage pickup in France.  At first, I was surprised when I began to realize that the garbage men came once a day everyday.  When I asked my host mom about it, I found that I was mistaken.  They don’t come once a day, they come twice a day!  As for holidays and Sundays I am not sure of the policy, but every other day you are hard pressed not to see them out and about.

The Paris garbage men do a few things I have noticed.

– They remove the trash from the public bins (which aren’t actually bins, but circular hoops parallel to the pavement that have a green trash bag attached to them hanging down.)

– They pick up the rubbish people put out on the sidewalk in small tied up bags.

– Finally, they walk up and down the main roads and pick up all of the pieces of litter on the ground.

It is amazing to see this everyday.  I wonder how many other cities around the world are as efficient in this department.  One critique I usually have about cities is the trash and the dirtiness.  Certainly Paris can’t keep up with all the the litter that hits the ground, but they (the government and the garbage men) are making a tremendous effort.

UPDATE:

March 11, 2012

After being in Paris for nearly two months, I now know that the sanitation works do work on Sundays.  AND, not only do they change the public waste bins, pick up trash from the street, and collect household garbage that is put out, they also power wash the sidewalks.  How cool is that?!

I wonder if these workers like their jobs, because it seems nice to me to be outside all the time, chatting with your friends (because I’ve seen most of them working in large groups), making the sidewalks clean, getting to use a fireman hose… perhaps I’m romanticizing the job, but except in cases of really bad weather it seems to be a good job.  I wonder what the pay is?

UPDATE:

May 2, 2012

I found out yesterday that the sanitation workers work every single day of the year cleaning the streets and picking up trash except for May 1st.  This day is a special holiday in France when everyone goes out marching in the street and declaring what the stand for.