Remember not long ago when we were discussing waste and I commented that we didn’t have Wheelie bins in this vicinity? Hmm. Well as usual as soon as Technogran opens her big mouth, we have all been issued with a plethora of assorted containers, bags, boxes and yes, a Wheelie bin! Will I ever learn to keep my big mouth shut! Anyway, I am now having nightmare’s about the whole thing, terrified I suppose that if we get it wrong (in one nightmare I actually dreamt that they were going to fine you £1000 if you lost your Wheelie bin or put the wrong rubbish into the wrong container!) we will be carted off to jail or fined.
You have to remember everyone, what a dippy person I tend to be at the best of times, I have a mind like a sieve and trying to make head or tail of the relevant instructions that came with all the receptacles has been an absolute nightmare. Not only that, because of my previous incident with the ‘black box’ walking off into the wild blue yonder I am very reluctant to leave anything outside in case it walks off as well. Previously to the arrival of all the new containers we had our old metal dustbin, one black box and a green bag. The black box was stored at the top of the stairs with the green bag inside it for safekeeping and then just carried outside on the day of collection.
Now we also have a white bag (meant for plastic bottles without tops) a brown bin for kitchen waste with a smaller bin (now christened by myself as the ‘slop bucket’) for the same, and a large Wheelie bin which of course has had to remain outside or K and myself could not get in the flat. To make sure that some person doesn’t waltz of with the latter, I have firmly wedged it into the area next to my old refuse bin so that although if they were determined enough they could move it, it would take some effort on their part and hopefully they would get fed up of trying to dislodge it and decide that taking a neighbours bin would take far less effort.
The medium sized brown bin (referred to by our council as a caddy LOL) is for any food waste and contains a roll of plastic bags which you are supposed to place inside the small kitchen caddy (their description as previously stated mine is ‘slop bucket’) which to confuse matters says on the side of it NO PLASTIC BAGS in very large letters. Then when the forbidden plastic bag is full, you then tie it up and place it in the larger caddy (hitherto christened the larger slop bucket) where it will remain until collection. All food waste is to be placed inside this including tea bags, uncooked food, leftovers etc, and here is one area where K and I keep slipping up badly. Remember folks we are new to all of this, bad habits die hard, and we have become so accustomed to depositing practically everything into our kitchen waste bin, that I have had to constantly be fishing around inside it this week in order to retrieve wrongly placed items out of there and into their respective proper containers.
The biggest problem is space. The top of the steps now resembles a junk yard with the black box, green bag and now a white sack taking up most of the room. The aforementioned white sack is for plastic bottles (but not with tops, NO tops, plastic detergent bottles and cleaning product bottles and shampoo, conditioner and shower gel bottles ONLY, and again K and I keep slipping up with those items as well. The black box has now been reassigned to ANY glass container except window glass, crockery, broken glass, Pyrex glass or wait for it, mirrors. Quite what you do with any of the latter is not actually explained.
It’s literally all driving me insane. I am a recycling nervous wreck ! Don’t forget that besides having to learn all of this myself which with my memory is no easy task in itself, I also have to learn K where everything should now be deposited (hence my forays into our kitchen waste bin for discarded plastic bottles etc.) What I want to know is this, how come it has ended up being all down to us the humble householder to sort out? I don’t remember any of us asking for all this plastic packaging do you? Or requesting that we all do away with our open fires on which the vast majority of all this refuse would have been burned? Speaking of which, has global warming been halted by us all doing without our open fires?
And remember that when we did all have open fires, there wasn’t all of this packaging being used anyway. Please don’t misunderstand me, I am all for recycling but…. as is often usual with progress, we tend not to think things through long term. We got rid of all household use of open fires because it supposedly was bad for the environment and in the process disabled a means for every household to get rid of a lot of their waste, then we begin to increase dramatically the use of plastic and packaging as a whole which then has to be disposed of somehow. Think about it all. Sometimes decisions made by those who supposedly are trying to improve everyone’s life turn out to cause more problems than they solve.
So back to our own personal recycling. Its the first day tomorrow and for us, week A when brown caddy, white sack and black box will have to be placed outside at the end of the path for collection. This will then be followed by week B when the Green bag, brown caddy, white sack and grey wheelie bin will be collected and emptied. What’s betting I either put the wrong receptacles out or miss the collection?
If you don’t hear from me after all this you will know that either I have been carried off for getting it all wrong or alternatively been carted off to the local psychiatric hospital as a gibbering wreck!
TG 
Windows Live Tags:
recycling,
plastic,
bags,
bins,
caddy,
waste,
bottles,
glass,
paper,
box,
sack,
wheelie bin
