Everything is a journey now, especially if it involves failure. The X Factor rejects, people having disasters as they build their own homes on Grand Designs, they’re all on a journey. ‘It’s been an incredible journey,’ they say, watery-eyed as they reflect on what is, in truth, a shameful mess of their own making.
Very much in this vein, a new communication from Lambeth Council has come through my door explaining ‘the recycling journey’. Bear with me, because I want you to come on this journey in order to fully grasp the beautiful symmetry of what Lambeth has achieved.
Imagine a flow chart made up of eight photographs. The first is of a smiling, relaxed-looking householder in cargo pants and flowery blouse putting a large bag of recyclables on to the pavement outside her house. I’m assuming the message this is meant to send is that, like sex, recycling is very much an activity that anyone can take part in. Birds do it, bees do it, even ladies in trousers cut off at the kneeeees do it!
The caption says: ‘You put your recycling out in your orange or clear sack.’ And there is an arrow pointing from that picture to the next one, which is of a bin man in a fluorescent vest and rubber gloves bending down to cheerfully pick up the bag, with the caption ‘We pick it up on your collection day…’
That never happens. It is a well-known fact that modern bin men do not bend cheerfully. The bin men who take my refuse usually kick the bags into the middle of the street where they fester in a huge pile for a few hours, then when a dust cart comes round, one bin man, probably the work experience lad, picks the highest ones up and flings them in the cart.
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