“Bin-day” was always on a Wednesday. It was a straightforward concept; you would fill up your black bin, wrap a tag on the handle and leave it outside the front of the house. The men would come, dump the contents into the back of the big truck and you were left with a nice empty bin. Simple. Well dear Lord, things have become a lot more complicated in the world of refuse collection.
Firstly we had the arrival of the Green Bin. A wonderful concept in which paper, milk-cartons and cardboard were put in the new bin and not the black one. The green bin was collected monthly on a Tuesday and the black bin would only be collected every second week as we were recycling so much of the aforementioned items. Not quite as simple as before but a quick modification to the kitchen wall calendar and we were still okay.
Then cometh the Brown Bin. This smelly addition with its smaller brother, who now lives in our kitchen, is for recycling all organic matter such as food scrapings, grass, fruit, veg etc. The baby one has a nice name: “kitchen caddy”, which makes it sound more acceptable than the faecal brown, stinky, lidded box that it actually is. With the introduction these foul smelling receptacles we are also to be charged an annual fee plus our bin tags for the black bin. Now pay attention: The brown bin is collected 2 in every 3 weeks, the black bin is collected alternate 2 in every 3 weeks, the green bin is collected every second week and now also accepts plastics. On this last point there is however some confusion as to what plastics you can actually put in it. Is it all plastics which bare the recycling logo or only certain plastics? I have looked at both the County Council and the service providers web sites and I am still none the wiser.
As if all that wasn’t complicated enough, now we have another private operator stalking the area. They use purple bins for refuse and a different shade green bin for recycling. They don’t have a brown bin but they used to have a blue bin for glass; however that has been stopped due to the fact that all the various colours of glass were dumped in together and therefore can never be used as glass again. I believe when the glass is not separated it can only be crushed and used as an aggregate for road building.
Despite the wonderful choice and the obvious environmental benefits all this recycling will bring, the net result however is that there is a constant stream of bin trucks up and down the road on a daily basis. They arrive any time between 07:30 and 19:30 and sometimes they don’t arrive at all. There is general chaos as to who owns which bin when everyone comes home from work and the bins have been scattered. We have so many bins in the driveway that there is no longer room for the car. I am thinking that I might change it for a small bin truck. I am also currently trying to memorise our “bin calendar” and if I am successful don’t be surprised if you see me on Mastermind: “Mr. Clarke, your chosen topic is.....rubbish!”
