Dumping garbage to classical music

Taiwanese residents holding plastic bags of rubbish stand on a footpath as a yellow garbage truck playing classical music over a loudspeaker pulls up.

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For decades, the tinkling of Beethoven's Fur Elise or Tekla Badarzewska-Baranowska's Maiden's Prayer has alerted Taiwanese households to take out their garbage.

Like clockwork, residents emerge from their apartment buildings carrying bags of pre-sorted rubbish as the musical garbage trucks approach.

"When we hear this music, we know it's time to take out the trash. It's very convenient," 78-year-old Lee Shu-ning said as she waited outside her tower block in Taipei.

Residents toss plastic bags of general refuse into the yellow compaction truck and tip food waste and recycling into bins carried by another vehicle.

For the elderly, taking out the trash has become a social event and many arrive early to sit and talk around the collection points.