You see them every week. They are more imperishable than cockroaches. Garbage pickers. No, I don't mean the guys who go through the crap some guy has hoarded in his bard for the past 50 years to find some treasure to restore. I'm talking about the people who come around and take all your recycling and then pick through your garbage cans just in case you forgot to put a can into the recycling bin.

I know it's a strong word, but it really applies here. I hate them. Yes, hate. I know they say once you put the garbage on the curb it's not yours anymore, but let me ask you this; what about those of us who live on narrow streets with no sidewalk and our trash cans and recycle bins never actually leave our property? How is that different than when my trash cans are down by the side of my house all the rest of the week?

You're probably asking why I care and guess what? I'm going to tell you. I care for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it's unsanitary. With all the disease problems we have these days and i watch these parasites go from one set of trash to another, never restricting themselves to solely the recycle bin. Always going into the trash bags, tearing them open and rummaging around then moving on the next house. That's disgusting! And you come home without thinking a thing about it and grab that barrel and lid and put them back together and drag them back down where they belong, and now all those lovely germs gathered from dozens and dozens of bags of trash before you are all on your hands and clothes.

Then there's the fact that they are tearing open these bags. You take the care to make sure everything is securely ties up and now if it's a windy day suddenly your street is covered in trash, thanks to the pickers. And the trash collectors aren't going to pick it up. It will blow all over the street, your yard, your neighbor's yards. How nice.

And then there's this. This is what really annoys me. I don't know how it works where you live, but in my town, our recycling bin is supplied to us by the town. It is designated for recyclables that the town has contracted with a company to pick up and dispose of. My town receives an amount of money based on the amount of recycling gathered and that money goes to help my town. Now some people might say 'Oh how much could they really be getting? It's not enough to matter." Really? Consider this: one trash picker makes enough from collecting cans to make his car payments and pay his car insurance. That's just one person out of dozens - literally dozens - picking trash in one town. Add all that up and think what that might come out to. It would come out to a lot of reduced or free lunches for needy kids at the schools as well as other educational programs. Actually, it doesn't really matter what it would be used for, the point is, it would be used for something that tax dollars wouldn't be needed for.

Now, when I drink my Diet Sprite and rinse out the can and put it in my recycling bin, I have a choice. I can choose to take those cans back to the store and get the deposit back for myself, or I can choose to put my town provided recycling bin out for the town contracted recycling company to pick up so that the money for those recyclables will go to benefit my town. At no point in time am I making a choice to have some low life come and pick through my garbage, spreading disease and take money away from my town so they can drive a better car than I do without bothering to work a regular job for it.

I really believe a low should be passed. If someone puts their recycling in those town/city provided bins and puts them on the curb on pickup day, they should then be considered property of the town and to collect them should be stealing. That would put and end to the trash pickers.