How the Covid-19 pandemic causes us to rethink old habits

We all have habits. Some we grew up with. Some we developed as life moved on. I grew up with a love of taking out the garbage. Is it moving the trashcans to the foot of the driveway, tossing the trash bag down the chute of the incinerator? All. But these days you need a mask and gloves to do all this. So is it worth it to take it out instantly? Or can we let recyclables sit in a bag for a day or two and load up? Maybe go out once or twice a week to the incinerator, which is less than 7 feet from my door. I just don’t know. But let’s discuss it.

Of course, garbage has not been incinerated in NYC since 1993. In ’89, Mayor Koch, one of the last real New Yorkers — “How am my doin’” pushed a bill through to stop it.  The last building incinerators were torn down in 1993. Today’s recycling laws make garbage disposal for someone like me more fun. We get to separate aluminum, plastics and paper. We use different trash disposal containers in our buildings.

Let me do the origin story. It starts with my maternal grandparents. My grandmother would make my grandfather go to the incinerator all day. Amazing to believe that two people produced enough trash for him to spend so much time taking it out.

A typical visit would be to eat a meal she cooked. We would eat quickly. If we started eating at 2:45, we’d be done by 3:00 p.m. and the Brooklyn apartment would be cleaned by 3:05. The vacuum would come out and grandpa would go to the incinerator.

At least 20 years ago, we were at my mom’s for a Sunday barbecue. My mom has a typical kitchen garbage can containing a “tall kitchen garbage bag”. My grandmother was looking at grandpa. He knew the “take out the garbage look.” She said the bag was getting full. Keep in mind he was an officer in the US Army and defended us during WW II. He jumped right up and headed to the trashcan. My mother yelled, “Unlike you, we do not worship garbage.” He sat down. Mom loaded more garbage into the can. She made it overflow. Later on, I got the joy of emptying it and bringing it to the outdoor can.

I got my first Rego Park, N.Y. apartment and took my grandparents’ garbage take out to the extreme. Then I moved to a Bay Terrace, Staten Island, N.Y. place. It had Dumpsters. I used to love to go to the Dumpsters.  Eventually, I moved back to Queens. But when I travel to the Island on the Staten Island Railway, I pass the apartment complex and can see the Dumpsters. I salute them.

I’ve been at the new place since 2007. From day one I went to the incinerator like grandpa.  Sadly, in 2011 he passed away. So I go in his memory. Thankfully, the incinerator door on the floor at grandma’s still has the note he left — “LAZY people PUSH GARBAGE DOWN CHUTE YOU BRING ROACHES.” She still goes to it all the time.

But over the last few weeks, I’ve let the recyclable trash sit in a bag and bring it out all at once. Instead of a cereal box at 6:00 a.m., a Tropicana container at 6:20 a.m., a can a few minutes later. You get the point.

What will I do after the virus ends and we go back to life? I don’t know. But it has made me rethink are my old habits worthwhile?