A little story about recycling…
Yesterday morning I rushed out of the house to try and catch the recycling van – not because the men driving it were super-sexy or anything (although in my current Bridget Jones phase, I can’t really afford to be choosy) but simply because I hadn’t put my recycling out on time and they were leaving! Luckily I got there in the nick of time. I handed my big, blue, plastic box full of last week’s egg cartons and milk bottles (and just one or two wine bottles) over to the men, thanked them and started to head back inside to rescue my toast from burning, until…
One of the men popped his head round the side of the van to inform me that I’d better get in touch with the council to get myself an official recycling bin. “Your bin’s fine” he said, “it’s just that from October we have the right to refuse to collect if it isn’t in a council issued bin”. Fair enough, I thought, except that the ‘official’ recycling bins provided by the council are big, blue, plastic boxes – just like mine! The same size, but a slightly different shade of blue. I used to have one until it mysteriously went missing from the garden one night, along with a strange plastic owl that had been left there by Kurt & Lucy before I moved in, and an old, flat football – they seemed odd things to steal given that there was a perfectly good windsurfer and a mountain bike in the garden as well, but each to their own. Luckily they didn’t spot the other blue box in the shed, so I was able to use that for my recycling instead!
He went on, “if you get yourself a proper bin from the council, you can still put your old one out with it, no problem”. I found this a little bit silly and slightly irritating, especially since my toast burnt as well, but of course, being frightfully British, I apologised profusely for the inconvenience and promised to give the council a call as soon as possible to sort it out.
Henri
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