Recycling my rubbish has pushed me to tipping point

And there are other hazards and shocks to the system too, such as that which befell a young man in a hi-vis jacket who came calling at Hextol Towers shortly after Christmas.

In the wake of the festive season our green bin was bulging with all manner of effluvia – from bones and festering sprouts, to dog bags and potato
peelings.

Although it was a bank holiday I knew the bin men, God bless ‘em, were working, but I failed to take account of the fact that they might not come at their usual time.

I normally wheel the bin out at 8.30am on my way to work, but I was still hovering around the Land of Nod when I subconsciously noted the mating call of the lesser spotted bin wagon reversing down the road.

I shot out of bed, slung on my “hospital only” dressing gown, hurtled downstairs, snatched the bin from its stance and trundled it out of the back gate just as the pleasant young man was passing purposefully by.

“Phew; just made it!” I gasped, as he raised an amused eyebrow and remarked: “Have you indeed?”, before wheeling the bin away with shaking shoulders.

It was only when I got back into the house that I realised the belt on my dressing gown had come adrift, and thought, I really must start wearing pyjamas...

But seeing portly pensioners in almost the all-together must be all in a day’s work for the latter day Smellie Ibbotsons of Tynedale, whose lives must be so much easier since the advent of the wheelie bin.

In the good old days, they actually came into the garden every week and hoisted a heavy metal bin on to their shoulders, tipped the contents into the wagon and returned the bin to whence it had come.

Then the wheelie bin trundled into our lives and instead of one, all-purpose metal bin, we had a choice of three plastic ones, which had to be wheeled uphill to the roadside.

Among them was a brown one for garden waste, which was initially free, but which now costs £28 for the season –even though Northumberland County Council sells the treated contents to gardeners. Surely that should be the other way round ...?

And that brings me to what the county council calls the household waste recovery centre, but which I still call “the tip”.

Tipping now has become a scientific business, for where everything once went into a hole in the ground, it now has to be allocated to a variety of skips, cubby holes and receptacles, with strident notices stating sternly what can and cannot be deposited.

I had the back seats down in the car to accommodate the remains of an old shower cabinet, incorporating broken tiles, glass, PVC, wood, cement, plasterboard, sticky back plastic and all manner of other unidentifiable bits and pieces.

I felt reasonably confident that the shattered tiles – one of which had lacerated my thumb, meaning everything was besmirched with blood – constituted rubble, and I had just heaved the second sack into the rubble skip when a hi-vis vest loomed to remind me of the Fly Tippers Charter which meant that sacks of rubble have to be paid for at £2 a go.

“How many have you put in?” he demanded rather hotly. “And don’t lie because I have watched you put at least two in.”

I considered pointing out that, as a public servant, he should perhaps have been assisting an elderly fat man to lift heavy bags several feet into the air rather than observing, but I let it pass as he began sifting through one of the bags, exclaiming with disgust that plasterboard was not rubble, nor was asbestos, and making generally disapproving noises, before adding to the general trip pong with the stench of burning martyr as he carried bits of my offending “rubble” at arm’s length to other parts of the tip.

He stalked off without asking for any money, but I suspected he may have noted my registration number
in order to send the tip police to Hextol Towers in the dead of night for tax evasion.

I sought out and paid a colleague, who seemed genuinely astounded that someone was prepared to pay.