Nothing makes me want to move to Cobham more than a letter from Lambeth Council that begins like this: ‘Dear householder: We have made changes to our recycling and refuse services. These changes are the result of a waste strategy that we have been developing over the last two years with your help.’
I hadn’t realised that I had been helping Lambeth Council with anything, least of all a waste strategy. In fact, I would go so far as to say I had been under the impression that I had been very deliberately trying not to help Lambeth Council with anything, especially its waste strategy. But apparently this is not the case.
‘From 4 April 2011 every Lambeth resident must recycle their rubbish. Recycling is compulsory and we are monitoring households to make sure they are recycling their waste. If you do not recycle, you will receive a series of warnings. If you ignore the warnings and continue to not recycle, you could face a fine of up to £1,000.’
A leaflet then arrived explaining in greater detail how I would be expected to fulfil the new recycling edicts. The most immediately alarming thing was a complex set of rules about the placement of my wheelie bin.
‘Put your bin out on the street by 6 a.m. on your collection day. Do not put your bin out before 8 p.m. the night before. Bring your bin in on the same day, or at the latest by 8 a.m. the day after collection.’ I have thought about this long and hard, and have brought a pen and paper to bear on it, but even after a frenzied session of quadratic equations, I cannot work out at what time exactly I am meant to move my bin in and out. It is beyond the wit of Einstein.
‘Do not put any rubbish bags next to your bin,’ the leaflet goes on. Recycling bags, however, should only be put next to the bin. The rules for the recycling bags were long and agonised and culminated in the declaration that putting non-recyclable items into an orange bag ‘is known as contamination’. Crikey.
‘If you live in a food waste collection area you must recycle your food waste.’ I have no idea if I am or am not in a food waste collection area. Truly, I would not be able to take a guess one way or the other even if you subjected me to waterboarding. I will need to ring the helpline number and do battle with automation.
‘We will not be checking your food waste bins but we will be monitoring participation. If you do not recycle your food waste, but are able to, you will receive a letter or a visit from a Waste Support Officer. If you persistently do not recycle your food waste, you could face a fine of up to £1,000.’
I’m already terrified of the Waste Support Officer. Although it sounds like one of those non jobs, like a Lesbian Outreach Co-ordinator or Pagan Transgender Police Liaison Officer — I actually think the Waste Support Officer will have teeth.
I reckon it will be a big fat woman who’s also a member of the Pagan Transgender Police Outreach Support team. I think she will probably come to my house with a clipboard and demand to see the state of my food caddy. She will start by making out she is only trying to provide me with personalised waste management advice. She will claim she is trying to ‘empower’ me by giving me more information about my food composting ‘choices’.
But I think we all know it won’t be about that really. After nosing around my bins for half an hour, making notes on her clipboard, she will find a piece of orange peel in the recycling basket and go back to Brixton town hall and write me up. Then, in five years’ time, when I finally give up on men and bring a baby back from China, I will get a letter from social services to say they are blocking the adoption on the grounds that I have extreme beliefs which make me an unfit mother.
But all of that is as nothing to the main problem I face. You see, I share a wheelie bin with my upstairs neighbours. Oh, the horror. We will have to have two bins from now on. And I intend to bore a hole in the edge of the lid of my bin and fit it with a huge padlock, the sort that’s resistant to bolt-cutters. And if that doesn’t stop those pesky girls upstairs throwing wine bottles into my wheelie, I’m moving to Cobham. And if they have compulsory recycling there I can always go to the south of France. Or Montana. Or Wasilla…
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