Dumpsters

In class today one of my classmates asked our teacher how to say “wastebasket” in Russian. I joked about how he should be recycling, not throwing away, and asked how to say “recycle bin.” The teacher didn’t understand my question, so I explained that I was asking about those big yellow municipal bins for bottles, cans and paper. Oh, she said, we call those “trash containers.”

I followed up, then, and asked what they call the blue containers intended for garbage. Patiently, she explained that those are called trash containers.

“The same word?” I asked. “No wonder there’s always so much garbage in the yellow bins and so many bottles and cans in the blue bins.”

A fruitless discussion ensued. As far as I could tell at the beginning, she was completely unfamiliar with the concept of recycling. My classmate Ramazan pressed the issue and explained what recycling is all about. Oh yes, the teacher said brightly, “We have a word for recycling. It’s…” [They use a phrase which translates to “second use.”]

“So,” I asked, “how would you ask your husband to take a bag of trash to the dumpster and a second bag of cans and bottles to the recycling bin?”

Unfortunately, my question effectively killed the discussion. Apparently it was completely nonsensical, so we moved straight back to our grammar lesson.

Recyclable stuff in the trash bin

Trash in the recycle bin