Like ten+ years ago, there was a certain day before New Year when you would just take anything to an appointed spot (like at an intersection) and just dump it. I don’t think people would take their coffee grounds and orange peels and that kind of trash – these mini mountains were like the stuff you wanted to throw out when you were doing your spring cleaning.
So, you’d get rid of your stuff and the professional recycling people would all converge and take whatever they could get some $ for and eventually the Taipei trash truck would come and take care of the rest.
I thought it was a decent system – just once a year, you can get rid of your junk without the stress of handing it over to some city worker in the back of a truck. Sure, there was one day when a mountain of junk sat on the street, but it was just one day. Perhaps that’s why they got rid of it. Anyone remember these glorious days?
I’ve seen tons of mountains of furniture and other discarded items outside these past few days. Problem is it’s been slightly rainy so I didn’t want to actually dig through anything to look closely, as anything salvable became trash when mixed with the wet stuff falling from the sky.
I miss living in the US where you could just drive around near any university on move-out day and furnish your life with fantastic quality, barely used items (including nearly brand-new fridges, rugs, etc.) for free… Problem is most of the crap I’ve seen on the curbs here are literal crap. No solid wood dovetail drawer dressers or All-Clad pan sets…
go for a block by block walk? I also noticed a lot more trash tricycles out since Sunday, so you might need to be quick about it — I know people are “throwing out the old to make room for the new” or whatever right now, but they might have been in trouble in the past for leaving stuff out and been more proactive about arranging for pick up.
A number of Taiwanese also told me they try to throw stuff out later in the evening/night for a late night pick up (or else the neighbors complain). So maybe walk around after dinner? To be clear, I’ve seen nothing useful this year.
If how some of the older generation treat their bikes is any indication, it doesn’t seem like there’s a huge culture of trying to preserve stuff. Seems more of a use it til it don’t work no more attitude. Ofc there are exceptions, and many of them – I know a few older Taiwanese guys who have motorcycles from the 90s they keep in good maintenance despite riding them hard, such as a guy with a Yamaha TTR that this dude definitely puts through the paces offroading and on road – but the number of scooters I see on a day to day basis that are just torn up and making sounds they definitely ought not to be making is a little concerning. Remember one girl I met used her family’s scooter and they got the oil changed like, once a year? And were all surprised when it suddenly had issues, got angry at her for not treating it right, and resolved to buy a new one so they could give the old one to the younger son. Saw a bike today with rust all along the outside of the fuel tank, something a cheap paint job could’ve prevented.
It’s unfortunate because it leads to a lot of unnecessary waste, but much as you said with the college kids – it’s certainly not exclusive to Taiwan. More of a global problem, but I do think the younger generation is better, especially those who’ve got their own bikes - whether with their own money or daddy’s - and whatnot. They seem to take more pride in keeping stuff in better condition. But idk.