Blue,purple, brown.......forget it!

My views on recycling are fairly mixed. On one hand of course I don't want my great grandchildren to live on a giant landfill world where only those on the rich list can have unpolluted land (although if the current economy continues they may find themselves picking through the cesspit for things to sell like the harrowing images we see from India and Bangladesh regardless!) On the other hand I am slightly dubious about exactly what happens to goods recycled and if I am truly honest most products made of recycled goods are a poor version of their shiny new counterparts-recycled paper is not quite right, recycled glass looks a bit like a school project and recycled toilet paper, don't get me started! I am sure there are some great recycled products out there but until the quality and price mirror the new market I will hold off on a handbag made of old zips thanks! When the day comes, and I'm sure it will if for no other reason than to steal and tax more,when I have to pay by the kilo for landfill waste I am contemplating anarchy or making according concil tax deductions for the drop in service. With that in mind some might call me a mercenary when I took a (handsomely paid I admit) job helping refuse collection companies simplify and streamline the populations recycling. The day started pleasantly enough with coffee and shortbread- are those recycled paper napkins?- and we were given a brief. Unlike so many other random jobs I have done where all the victims were young and skint, there was no "we're all in this together" vibe. In an effort to make sure the whole community would understand they had recruited all sorts of people. Differing ages, nationalities and worst of all people who took it very seriously. These people really cared and found my cynical asides to a like minded boy,in it purely for the cash, offensive and were not afraid to tell us so! Brief explained we were each given a bag of rubbish and 5 coloured buckets representing the bins households were to receive. I would call myself relatively intelligent, certainly in comparison to some, so although I'm never going to find the cure for cancer, separating glass from paper seemed straightforward. The job was not unlike shape sorting for the Eco minded adult. Green bucket for non recyclables-naughty manufacturers. Blue was for paper and card. Brown was for garden and kitchen waste. Purple was for glass and cans. Red was for plastics. See I told you, easy. Except it wasn't. Envelopes are paper in my world, except it turns out it isn't if it has a window then the window has to be removed to go with plastics. Juice cartons too have to have a surgical procedure to remove the plastic pouring spout. I felt as though I was making an 80s Blue Peter project and longed for sticky backed plastic. Jars must have their metal lids removed- "some places pay you by weight, with cash"( as opposed to what I wondered I thought pine cones had ceased to be currency centuries before) Eco warrior one-let's call him Stig(of the dump)- tells me. "if you save enough you can make as much as £10!" jeez, I'd rather sell a kidney! In addition turns out they can't recycle and don't like it if you throw out a Chistmas tree with the lights still on it. In my defence the lights were broken and it makes such a mess removing them it hardly seemed worth it(Bad materialistic consumer). Add into the mix that you have to wash recyclable items and it all seems like too much hassle. Once we had all finished we had another coffee despite my suggestion it might be 'wine o'clock' while they collated data. Results in and it turns out 60% of people had as good as failed the test. The system was too complicated and time consuming. No surprises then. However when the scheme was rolled out they only made the tiniest changes so I imagine that there is still vast quantities of incorrectly sorted rubbish being recycled by well meaning suburbanites. The following week I had to laugh as land services delivered giant bags to my new build of flats. The man looked perplexed and mildly irritated as I refused to take one on the grounds they would ruin the look of my open plan kitchen/living space. I mean really large plastic bags reminding me of my diet coke addiction and Sauvignon habit doesn't do much for an interiors feng shui. Recycling is all well and good for people in houses with easy back door access to their bins but maybe some rethinking neds to be done for those in flats and open plan spaces. In conclusion recycling is up there with low energy bulbs. When I flick a switch I want instant light, if I want to walk into a dark room I wouldn't have bothered turning on the bulb. Doubt I'll be sporting dreadlocks or campaigning against motorways any time soon-what's that about anyway they are so convenient and traffic causes more fumes so surely more roads is a sensible solution!- and as research shows I was just too stupid to shape sort!