Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Rubbish advice

Jeremy Clarke reports on his Low Life

issue 21 August 2010

Cursing myself, I rushed out of the house in my pyjamas. I’d forgotten to put out the brown recycling bin for the fortnightly collection. I lifted the lid on next door’s bin and peeped in. Empty. I must have missed the truck by minutes. Now I was in trouble. Putting the recycling bin out on Wednesday morning was my one and only duty while she was away and I’d fluffed it. She’ll do star jumps in the hall when she comes home and finds out.

Hoping there might be something I could do to salvage the situation, I rang the council office. The woman dealing with refuse collection enquiries sounded young and happy. I’d missed the fortnightly food waste collection, I said. Was there anything I could do about it? She was making a note, she said. It would be treated as a missed bin and someone would be along to empty it within the next three days. You misunderstand, I said. The bin men didn’t miss my bin. I missed them. I failed to get my bin out of the garage and into its usual position beside the road in time. My fault, not theirs.

In that case, she said, she couldn’t arrange a special collection. So what can I do? I said. She thought for a while, then she suggested I try to remember to put the bin out again in a fortnight’s time. But it’s mostly food waste and it’s starting to honk, I said. Wasn’t there anywhere I could dispose of the contents myself? I was willing to travel, I said. Hold on a minute, she said. I’ll have a word with my colleague.

When she came back on the line, she sounded amused, as though her colleague had agreed with her that I must be quite anal to be ringing up about such an unimportant matter. She had good news, though. Her colleague had said I could take my food waste to the local recycling centre. I gave a cheer. No need for directions, I said. I knew exactly where it was. Thank you very much for your help, I said.

I was about to put down the phone and start bagging up the swill, but she hadn’t finished. The food waste had to go into recyclable sacks, of course, she said, not plastic ones. I’d put it into anything she liked, I said. Just name the material, darling, I said. And did I know that I was only allowed to dispose of three binfuls per household per year? And only three sacks per bin? And I must have the six digit password to give to the foreman on arrival at the recycling centre. I knew that too, did I?

You are joking, I said.

All right, I said, what’s the password? That she wasn’t authorised to tell me. Only the refuse services liaison officer at the county hall was authorised to give out passwords. Should she put me straight through? Please, I said. 

A less happy woman now picked up the phone. Who gave me this number? Did I not know this number was no longer available to the general public? How did I get it? I was put through, I said meekly. Well, I shouldn’t have been ‘put through’. What did I want? The password, I said. I’d like to dispose of some food waste at the local recycling centre and the person I was speaking to earlier said you would be able to tell me what the password is.

Did nobody understand, she said, that there has been a review and this type of thing was no longer her responsibility? They really shouldn’t be passing this sort of stuff on to her. And, in any case, it isn’t as simple as giving out authorisation codes. She also has to fax through the same code to the recycling centre manager so that it can be matched against the number given to the customer. I’d have to wait a minute, she said.

Look, I said, I don’t want to hear how important you are or how grateful I should be. I am not interested in the internal politics of the county council. I am not asking for a special collection. I am not asking you to do anything except advise me where to take my food waste. And then I suddenly lost it and said something unforgivably coarse to this woman and threw the phone down.

Almost immediately I heard the hiss of air brakes outside. I looked out of the window. A yellow refuse lorry had just pulled up. I went outside with my arms outstretched in a statesmanlike welcome. A bin man was hooking our brown recycling bin to the lifting arm at the back. ‘I thought I’d missed you,’ I said. ‘Whatever gave you that idea? We’re early,’ he said.

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