Recycling

I'm all for recycling, though I must admit that sometimes it used to seem too much effort when we had to take things to recycling centres. Now, however, the local council is making it easier for us.

Outside our house we have wheelie bins in three different colours...blue, brown and green. The only difficulty is remembering which bin to put our rubbish in. Blue is for recyling...glass, tin cans, plastic, paper, cardboard etc. Brown is for organic waste recycling....garden waste and food waste (which can only be wrapped in newspaper or special biodegradable bags which are being sold, for some reason, at the local libraries.) Green, despite what you might think, is for everything else which can't be recycled.

Then there is the collection timetable. The bins are emptied fortnightly (weekly for organic in summer), but not all on the same week so there are timetables to follow. The binmen open the bins to check contents and if they happen to spot something in a recycling bin which shouldn't be there then they do not empty the bin.

Of course we are also encouraged to recycle goods to charity shops. Regular readers will know that I am a great fan of buying books in charity shops, then later recycling them back along with our unwanted clothes. The childrens toys are generally sent to a charity shop or donated to one of the local charities which organise activities for children with special needs. I also buy many things second hand on eBay. Our house is overflowing with recycled bargains!

So recycling is easier and secondhand no longer holds the stigma that it did when I was young. Indeed we don't say secondhand, we say vintage and make a fashion statement. Let's all carry on recycling!