Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Kuwait City, Kuwait on March 31st.

Sunday, August 6, 2017

You just have to give your head a shake

Here in the province of Saskatchewan, they have a great recycling program where almost all empty drink containers have a deposit on them. Juice boxes, all bottles and cans... virtually any kind of drink container. This way, none of it is tossed out the window of a car, and what is tossed out the window is soon picked up by someone who collects them for the deposit money.

Of course we collect a lot of those containers here at the park, and many people who camp here "donate" their recycling for the park to be able to collect the deposit.

So every Wednesday when Ruth goes in to town, we load up the little blue car with as much as possible. I even take out the back seat so that we can stuff it right full!

Well last Wednesday, Ruth took off in to Swift Current to the local SARCAN depot where they count your load and pay you your refund.

She had a variety of materials with her... but mostly pop and beer cans, and liquor and wine bottles.

They got through counting the cans, and were about half way through the bottles when the operation abruptly came to a halt.

There was a dead mouse in one of the bottles!

Okay, so the rules state that the bottles and cans have to be relatively clean, and obviously they were... until that one mouse chose an empty bottle as his final resting place. We have a lot of mice around the park and obviously the bottles up in the work shop might sit around for a week or two before being loaded into the car. It's honestly surprising that it doesn't happen more often.

Anyhow, the counting came to a stop, and they brought out the disinfectant and began wiping down their work surfaces. Ruth was told that they were unable to accept the rest of the load and that she would have to sterilize them in order to bring them back next time. But what had been accepted and counted was fine.

Huh? All because of a dead mouse?

Ruth didn't understand the logic. I'm not sure that the lady telling her this information understood the logic either, but she's just following the rules that some bureaucrat made up.

So Ruth gets back to the park and tells me the story. Obviously I don't understand the logic either. Sure... hand back that one bottle with the mouse in it... or better yet, just simply toss it in the trash. But why would you have to stop counting? Why would the next 100 bottles present more of a hazard than the previous 250 bottles? And aren't we just going to bring those same bottles back next week? How would they possible know which ones were sent back and which ones are new?

You just have to give your head a shake.

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25 comments:

  1. Dumb as a stump sounds like to me. Is there only one bottle depot there? They make money off it so I would recommend finding another (if possible)

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    Replies
    1. No, we don't have any other option. And all depots would follow the same rules anyhow.

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  2. Ain't naught queer as folk. As the Brits say.

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    1. My parents were both British as well as all my relatives and I have to say I have never heard this saying before so I had to look it up and yes, some people do behave/think in strange ways!

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  3. Seriously? After getting over the shock of how idiotic these rules are, I hope you had a good laugh. Sometimes that's all you can do!

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    Replies
    1. Too be honest we are still looking at each other and still shaking our heads! But yes, we are having a good chuckle over it.

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  4. Reminds me of the time I bought a 24 of Labatt's at "Tops Friendly Markets" (or I suppose that should be "mahkets", as the Buffalonians might say) and when I went to take them to the Brewer's Retail, the dope behind the counter tried to make it seem like I couldn't get my deposit back as the beer had come back over the border. I said, "Well, I guess I could take them all home and scrape off the part where it says they were bought at Tops, or you can just put them in with the other bottles". As I stood there giving him a blank stare, he then realised that he was being a dick and gave me my money.
    So it looks like you'll be taking another trip back to Swift Current with your "sanitised" bottles *snort*. Like you're going to waste your time on that. What a load.

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    1. You don't get any deposit back for American containers here in Saskatchewan. They will take them but no refund money. Technically they aren't suppose to take any container from outside of Saskatchewan but they have know way of knowing that but with the American ones they do because they have only ounces on them and the reason for this is that the deposit you pay on them is for the country/province that you bought them in, so if they give it to you at SARCAN they would in "theory" lose money because your deposit wasn't actually paid for in Saskatchewan. We understand that and are ok with that but the mouse thing sure doesn't make sense seeing that they didn't even have to "touch" the mouse and the mouse didn't even touch any part of their equipment! "Shakes head"

      Guaranteed those bottles will not be sanitised!

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  5. Replies
    1. Obviously the person who made this rule didn't have a lot of common sense!

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  6. I am shaking my head right now. That is just crazy.

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    1. Lol, Kevin and I are still shaking our heads!

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  7. The rules sometimes don't really make a lot on sense, but.....

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    1. Yep, I had to shut my mouth, pick up my trays and bags and put them back in the car because there was no sense in trying to argue the point, it wasn't their fault and I could tell that they felt really bad about it!

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  8. You can never expect logic from a regulatory process, among other things there is just to many inputs to the final rules:(

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  9. I guess it's like the ferry insisting you turn off your propane tanks for a 20 minute crossing. Car deck is flat and exposed - and a howling wind going across it! Some rules are just rules, I guess ;-)

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    Replies
    1. Yep, and it seems like there isn't much that can really be done about! :-(

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  10. Just make sure you bring your Certificate of Sterilisation with you, signed by the Queen of Saskatchewan

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    Replies
    1. I guess I had better pick that up tomorrow before I go back into Swift Current on Wednesday! ;-)

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  11. A mouse in a bottle? Why that constitutes biological warfare! A veritable Molotov Rat-tail.
    Lone Grey Squirrel.

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    1. I know, that is pretty scary stuff! I'm not sure how we have managed to stay alive these past 3 months in the trailer with all the mice that we have caught and the ones that still haven't been caught. Maybe we should be in quarantine or give ourselves a bleach bath before we go back as well! ;-)

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  12. So rules can be just as screwy in Canada as they are in the U.S. Surprised they didn't make Ruth take a shower on the spot! :cD

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    1. Paul and Marti, you are so-o-o-o funny! I guess a bottle drop-off place has to be more germ-free than a surgical area of a hospital!!

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    2. I know, perhaps Kevin and I should be in quarantine before we go there again, seeing that we are living with mice in our trailer! ;-)

      Dee, if they knew what some of the bottles and cans are covered with, I think the dead mouse is the least of the problem!

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