Rinse and repeat

I’m starting to get a garbage obsession.

Perhaps it’s all these shows about recycling your soft plastics, and sorting everything into the right bins?  Perhaps it’s seeing those heartbreaking online videos depicting an ocean of plastic drifting around the globe, like a new, undiscovered Pacific Island? ( The Isle of Polymer.)  Then there’s all the marine life myopically taking a bite at passing morsels as they float-by, thinking that the zip-lock bag you carelessly left on the beach (to be swept away in the next current) is actually a delicious jellyfish. Would you like chips with your PVC?

So, yes, I do try to minimise my waste.  I’m acutely aware of how much I’m contributing to landfill, but when it comes to disposal, I have a bit of a dilemma.  I’m not entirely in-charge of my own destiny when it comes to putting the rubbish out.  Hence my refuse fixation.

Sharing bins with twelve other apartments is problematic from the outset. You can see where I’m going with this.  Already you have at least a dozen different approaches to disposing of household rubbish, from pathological disinterest to apoplectic rage.  I tend to lean more towards the latter category these days, and have been seen ranting and dumpster-diving so many times by one of my neighbours that it’s become our new place to catch-up.  I once found a whole box of (unopened) Maltesers in the top of the wastepaper bin, in perfect condition.  And yes, I rescued them; and yes, they were delicious.  Come ON,  it was an excellent recycling opportunity.  They were still in full cellophane wrapping.  That’s good chocolate going to waste.

I also found a WHOLE television in the recycling bin recently.  Really.  Because a large, complex piece of technological hardware is SO obviously recyclable.  Put there in the cover of darkness, no doubt.  Hard to pinpoint a culprit, but clearly another moment of creative indolence.

Back to Polymer Island then, with its shape-shifting plastic-bottle atoll, and its choking lagoon bobbing with indestructable polyethylene, polystyrene and those imperishable waxed paper cups you see in the hands of coffee drinkers everywhere.  Another invention you wish had never gained traction, like shoulder pads, or quinoa, or anal bleaching.  (Maybe we’ll have to leave that last one for another time.)

What to do about it?  Well, we all know we have a global motherload of rubbish, and definitely insufficient carpet under which to sweep it.  So here’s a thought to ponder.  What about melting down all the plastic bottles, making a massive rocket and sending Trump off in it, to a galaxy far, far away.  Just saying.  Two birds, one stone. Garbage is garbage, whether it’s in a suit, with a comb-over or not.  Like, (a) really smart (idea), if you ask me.

Now I know you’re still wondering about the rinse and repeat title.  Well, all through my English childhood we had milk delivered to our doorstep by the local Milkman, Rodney – two glass bottles a day.  That’s 14 bottles per week –  60 a month, or 62, if we’re being pedantic, for those months with 31 days.

So, a family of four got through 730 bottles per year.

And here’s the kicker – our bottles were rinsed and left on the doorstep each morning, to be collected by the Milkman.  They were all recycled, reused, and refilled.  Even better, my dad still gets the same milk.

The farm in the village continues to deliver, and has been doing so for close to 50 years now.  Several generations of cows have come and gone, and I suspect some of the glass bottles would have needed replacing.   But fifty years.  That would amount to 36,400 bottles of milk.

Isn’t that fantastic evidence of minimising your environmental footprint?  Rodney was definitely ahead of his time.