Pause. Reflect. Try to imagine your existence without … without … yes, without your garbage man! Your ever faithful steward, never faltering, reliable, trustworthy garbage man. Truly he is one of our most important caretakers, each week arriving on schedule in his humpbacked truck to banish the detritus of our lives. Clang! Bang! Thunk! It’s gone! Disappeared — inextricably vacating our premises to where? The dark side of the moon? If there was ever a magician in our midst, it is this unsung hero. We love him! And if you don’t, you should, for lamentably it is seldom that we give this fellow his due.

To be respectfully correct, I should address our weekly warrior as a sanitation engineer. But, no matter the occupational title, what would we do without him? It is he who rids our streets of chaos, disease, decay and a sight so dreadful we dare not envision it.

Photos of cities in Third World countries cause us to avert our eyes, reluctant to cope with the squalor and disgust. On the other side of fortune are we, the developed cities in “First World” countries. Here hygiene reigns. In contrast we turn from those Third World photos thanking our lucky stars we live in Austin, a “First-est of the First Cities,” where order and cleanliness are the dependably consistent name of our salubrious game.

When I was growing up here our garbage service advertised across the broad side of its trucks, “We give S&H Green Stamps.” I simply could not figure out how that worked. There was never a strip of stamps taped to the cover of the empty can, nor could I bring myself to look deep inside its deplorable cavern … the place where my version of hell resided. To this day I remain puzzled over those stamps. If you know how this worked, please tell me.

Farmers have numerous ways of trash disposal. City folks do not. Our insistence on maintaining aseptic neighborhoods trap us with our debris. And, boy, do we have it! Thankfully to our rescue come these weekly super stars, saving us from ourselves. Some years ago a very brainiac person came up with the idea of sorting our garbage. Thus the recyclers were born. Of course our adoration must include them, as well, for it is their efforts that have saved our city dumps. Doesn’t this beg the question of why it took us so long to figure out the merits of reusing stuff? Were our heads too stuffed with detestable plastic bags to notice? Praise the Lord! We finally saw the light.

Moreover, I would be amiss if I did not praise Austin’s homeowners who so conscientiously sort their cast offs into the proper bins. At first this effort was a pain, I know, but now after seeing that light, it has become a source of pride. We’re actually doing our small part to help our planet.

Are you astonished … concerned? … over how much we throw away every week? Our roll-away cans and stackable bins are filled to the brims. It’s staggering the privilege we have of owning so much stuff that we can regularly toss legions of it away, never looking back with regret or shame. Be gone! You have lost your charm and I don’t want you anymore!

Much of our disposable waste is, as we are reminded everyday, junk mail. That’s how it got its name! Busy people are highly vexed by it and annoyed with unwanted papers taking up their time, while lonely folks look forward to it. Even a used car flier is better than finding their mail boxes empty.

I recently asked a friend in Tokyo how recycling is done there. Here is her reply: Monday — paper, cans and glass bottles. Tuesday — raw and general garbage. Wednesday — plastic bottles. Thursday — other plastic (and it must have the mark “plastic” on it), and Friday is again raw and general garbage. The fourth week of the month is for non-combustibles. And here you thought once a week was troublesome!

Japanese garbage men leave notes on trash that is put out on the wrong day. In Tokyo you must write your name on your garbage bags. In case of a garbage slip-up, you can be identified as the slip-upper who did not follow the rules. (There was no mention of a garbage prison for recycling miscreants, but I’m guessing the idea has been considered.)

In some areas of Japan all garbage must be contained in yellow bags since a savvy committee of bird experts determined that Asian crows avoid yellow. Turned out, however, that these cagey foul fowls are more clever than the committee. They figured it out in no time and are now feasting in particular on yellow bagged garbage while thanking the committee that their scrounging time is not wasted.

Meanwhile the unyielding bird committee came up with the concept of nets which when laid over the garbage bags thwart the smarty-pants feathered combatants. So far the committee has been successful. Makes me think I should drop a big net over my yard to confound the deer. I stop, however, at searching out yellow garbage bags to inhibit our local American crows. Personally I think the ones at my house could care less.

Don’t such meticulous, pesky rules make you feel compassion for the Japanese and even more indebted to our local silent sanitation engineers? How favored we are. Maybe it is us who should be giving them S&H Green Stamps!