Well as promised I will be trying to cover a topic or two in each blog. This one is a threefold discussion: 1) Dutch miscommunication, 2) Dutch directions to locations, and 3) recycling here.
We live in this wonderful old (or made to look old) Dutch farmhouse. It is owned by this lovely couple who are in their early 60s (we think...haven't asked them). They are willing to do almost anything to make this house better and more livable for us. But, they don't speak a word of English (okay maybe a word or two, but that is due to cognates and luck). We had asked them what we do about disposable diapers. Thanks to Rebecca Operhall we have been using diapers that we should be able to flush, but our plumbing might not deal with that well. So were we to put them in the trash or was there an alternative?
Tien and Maritje (the landlords) have a daughter-in-law who we asked, Marguerite. Marguerite gave Maritje the information about the chance to recycle diapers here. I joined Tien and Maritje for coffee...and Maritje tried to explain what Marguerite had told her.
Misunderstanding one: I thought that Marguerite was going to stop by. So I stayed well beyond my welcome waiting for her until it became clear that she was not coming.
Maritje said that I needed to go to the old folks home to pick up sacks for recycling. I asked Old Folk's home? Hoping for an address or phone number or some way to reach this mythical land. -- Misunderstanding two: Maritje tried a different tact: Old Men's home....ah, that was much better. We went back and forth with me coming no closer to an answer, except that I had a town name and that was our local town of Volkel which is pretty small. Just so you know, I have never actually gotten a street address for anything unless it was an American offering directions. This is not a unique problem with the landlords.
The next morning, I went and parked the car outside the grocery store and took the baby and walked. Past the church and before the petting farm was a building that was clearly inhabited by elderly folks. I took a chance and tried a couple of doors before finding the front door and a nurse at a duty station. She handed me two big rolls of plastic bags and somehow we managed to communicate with each other....I found that out back of the old folks home were two large barrels for incontinance and that I was allowed to take the diapers to them.
So now, twice a week, Eileen and I wander to town with a large bag of soiled diapers. Believe it or not, they do indeed recycle soiled diapers from the elderly and babies. Apparently, they have found a way to wash away the human waste and then break the diapers into plastic and pulp components.
This is better than waiting two weeks for the trash to be picked up; and it goes to the right place. I guess here is where I say that trash here is similar but not identical to trash in the US. We put the trash into one of two carts, a smaller green cart for compostable trash and a larger black cart for everything that cannot be recycled and is not hazardous by Dutch standards. Each gets picked up on alternate Mondays (next monday is green). I think that there are stiff penalties for exceeding our trash limits, but I haven't heard that officially yet.
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