Now, let me tell you from the outset that I don’t normally spend a great deal of time thinking about my trash, nevermind talking or writing about it. I just take the trash to the receptacle as needed and put it at curbside for pick-up once a week. That’s it, not a big deal. Right? Wrong. I’m nearly fighting mad!

I was forced to think more about my trash when I began having to pick my trash off the kitchen floor because the side of the town of Windham issued trash bag had split open or I was left holding the yellow drawstring that closes the bag. I thought that it was just a one-time incident and that perhaps my family and I had put too much trash in the bag.

Was I ever wrong!!

After I cleaned my kitchen floor much more than was necessary I made a call to the town office. I discussed how very clean my kitchen floor was, but that I wasn’t necessarily happy about that and explained the trash bag problem. A town official told me, I don’t remember who it was, that the manufacturer was having a problem with a particular lot, and that the problem would soon be solved. I could go to the town office where they would be happy to give me a free roll of bags. Great, I thought. Small problem, and it will be over soon.

Was I ever wrong!! Again.

What I didn’t ask the town official was how long the manufacturing problem would last. Here I am more than a year later, still left with the bag’s yellow drawstring in my hand. But I’m not cleaning my kitchen floor as often. Not because the bag problem was corrected, rather I am purchasing “free market” trash bags; at a fraction of the cost I might add, and placing them inside the “Windham” bag. I fooled ’em. It is really quite amazing how the “free market” bag is of superior quality at a fraction of the cost to the “Windham” bag. Why do you suppose that is? The government can do it better than the private sector. Am I wrong once again?

Now let’s add insult to injury, the price of these “Windham” bags will increase not 10%, not 20%, but a whopping 25%! Ain’t life grand. And the million dollar questions is… Will the quality be any better? Will I be wrong again?

I do have a couple of questions for our town leaders: Why did we lower our standard for the quality of the bag? Because that is exactly what we did. “How do you know that?” You ask. For the first few years of the program there was no problem with the bag. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about my trash. Why have we tolerated such incompetence from the manufacturer of the bag? Why have we not insisted on a quality bag for which the citizenry is paying? We would not tolerate this from a “free market” program. We would simply change to a different manufacturer. And rightfully so. I have been tempted several times in the past year to use a “free market” bag and with my big sharpie, write a huge “W” on the bag. However, I was reasonably sure that my trash would be sitting at the end of trash pick-up day, precisely where I had placed it at the beginning of the day. I can’t be wrong here!

Have our town leaders, like so much of society, accepted mediocrity as the best we can do? Or is this problem not serious enough to warrant discussion? Because after all… Who wants to TALK TRASH?

Jeffrey M. Pierce

Windham