AILSA CHANG, HOST:
OK, this next story is a love letter to trash - specifically, Taiwan's system of garbage collection. NPR's Emily Feng has been reporting from Taiwan for NPR for the last two years. And over time, she has developed a fondness for taking out her trash.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: When I first moved into my Taipei apartment, the real estate agent told me I'd need to take out my own trash. The catch is you can't just throw out trash in Taiwan. It must be meticulously presorted, then disposed of during five- to eight-minute windows, just once a day. I don't have time for that, I spluttered. I anticipated long work days and lots of reporting trips.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRUCK ENGINE RUNNING)
FENG: So I tried to hire someone to take out my trash for me, which is a whole industry in Taiwan, but I kept striking out.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS RUNNING)
FENG: And so running to catch the trash truck every few days became part of my routine...
(SOUNDBITE OF BAG RUSTLING)
FENG: (Speaking Mandarin).
...So much so that I planned dinners around coming home in time to make the trash window.
(SOUNDBITE OF BAG RUSTLING)
FENG: OK, so this bag is not very full. So we will leave that for next time.
I'm teaching my sister Kathleen here, still a trash amateur.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRUCK RUNNING)
FENG: OK, so it comes every day at 5:05 and 9:32 p.m., except for Wednesdays and Sundays. And the paper recycling only comes Mondays and Fridays. The other days are plastics and metals recycling.
Got that? Taiwan requires you to separate compost - plastics and metals, plastic wrapping, paper and cardboard, and regular trash, which must be bundled in special blue bags in Taipei.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRUCK DRIVING)
FENG: Watch out.
Given that trash collection trucks only linger for a few minutes outside each building, you've really got to be ready to dash out as soon as you hear them.
(SOUNDBITE OF LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN'S "FUR ELISE")
FENG: In my neighborhood, their approach is helpfully heralded by the tinkle of "Fur Elise." So whenever I hear Beethoven's piano composition off in the distance, I break out into a cold sweat and look wildly around me, trying to gather my many bags of sorted garbage and hustle outside. Next to the trucks, my neighbors have already wordlessly queued up. I admire their silent aggression - everyone trying to throw in their trash first and then rush back home.
(SOUNDBITE OF LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN'S "FUR ELISE")
FENG: Taiwan is an island of towering volcanoes and swampy valleys. But so extensive is the trash collection service and so pervasive is the sound of "Fur Elise," I've heard it waft through the air while hiking trails I thought were remote.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRUCK BEEPING)
FENG: For all the anxiety I had about getting the trash right in Taiwan, I grew to love it - its efficiency, the order and the rigidity of the system - probably things a therapist would say I lacked but craved in my own life. I found a grim satisfaction lining up behind my neighbors with their huge bags of garbage...
Yeah, just throw the cardboard in.
(SOUNDBITE OF MATERIAL CRUNCHING)
FENG: ...Weighed down with garbage of my own. Within a few weeks of living in Taipei, I had memorized the trash schedule. I became one of the regulars. After a decade of wandering in Asia, always the outsider from one new place to the next, I realized I had come to belong, rooted down enough to at least throw out my own trash. Emily Feng, NPR News, Taipei, Taiwan.
(SOUNDBITE OF SEAN ANGUS WATSON'S "THE WOODS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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