Today marks two and a half weeks, or 17 days if you like it like that, since our fortnightly recycling collection was last undertaken by St Albans contracted out’s finest. That’s two weeks with Christmas AND a birthday in them. We have amassed a mountain of cardboard which is probably blowing down the street as I type. You see, until fairly recently we had a large green wheelie bin we could put garden waste and cardboard in. Until some high wallah at the recycling plant decided people were recycling too much cardboard which meant the garden waste wasn’t composting.
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| A small pile of recycling…. |
The recycling makes no sort of sense now. All winter we have had a completely empty wheelie bin, getting blown around the street in the wind, and this morning, we still have a completely empty wheelie bin. BUT we do have: 2 small plastic boxes of cardboard, three cardboard boxes full of cardboard, two huge sacks of cardboard and two boxes of glass and plastic respectively. This is on top of me incinerating two loads of cardboard and dumping another boot load in the recycling on the way to work.
Any old excuse for a fire is good for me but when it’s soggy cardboard that’s been lying around for almost two weeks, the novelty of a major conflagration wears off somewhat. That’s not to say I’ve haven’t chopped up and burnt the Christmas tree because I obviously have. And it was magnificent.
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| A void of empty despair all winter |
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| Filled 8-10 times over during the Christmas break |
Walking down the street this morning, I could see we weren’t the only ones either. There was plenty of excess packaging flapping about in the wind.
I completely refuse to drive out of my way to the dump because I pay the council through taxes for refuse collection. I can’t imagine that the council would be keen on my proposal for a 45p a mile allowance for residents to drive the excess recycling to the dump either, so come on St Albans City and District Council, sort it out!
It’s nice to see I’ve mellowed in the new year isn’t it? Normal service may (or may not) resume shortly.