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Saturday 22 November 2008

Civic torment

Melissa Kite leads a Real Life

‘Do you mind if I just put a bag of garden waste next to yours if you’re having it collected?’ said the friendly lady who lives next door.

I was piling up my regulation green canvas bags for ‘heavy garden waste’ and white bags for ‘light garden waste to be composted’ when she popped the question as she opened the door to her house. A harmless enough request in days gone by. But in the current climate?

Reader, I panicked. I froze to the spot. I had already informed Lambeth council of the amount of waste, almost to the nearest ounce, to be collected. I had counted the bags three times over to make sure I was giving them the right information. I had sifted through the bags meticulously, shredding the skin on my hands, to make sure there were no unauthorised materials inside — no soil, rubble, bits of plant pots, no vegetable peelings or anything else that could be construed as foodstuffs, and no large branches (length not specified so I err on the side of caution and cut anything from a tree into a million tiny pieces).

My neighbour disappeared inside her house as I stood hyperventilating with civic torment in my front garden. After a few minutes she brought out one small, white sack, neatly tied at the top. She smiled innocently and held it out to me. I wanted to be a good neighbour and take it from her. She seems a nice woman. She has a child who scowls at me comically every time I see them and a husband who rides a bike. Nice people. Nice people, I kept repeating to myself as I tried to reach out and take the biodegradable bag. But how could I be sure that it contained only authorised material?

There was a long, awkward pause as I toyed with the idea of subjecting her to an interrogation about grass cuttings, leaves and twigs. Were there any hedge trimmings therein which could be construed as large branches? Did she have any idea how long it had taken me to arrange the collection properly, according to the laws of the land, and now her extra bag had rendered my submission incorrect and subject to official suspicion?

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