Day 5: On the bins for Comic Relief

Well it's been a fab day on the bins. I must admit after such an early start I am thoroughly exhausted and am very much in need of a bath, especially as I've got guests tonight.

To raise some lovely cash for Comic Relief I've spent the day walking around the Howard Estate in Bury St Edmunds for almost four and a half hours in steel toe-capped boots, lifting up the lids on the recycling bins and peeling off the old recycling stickers before slapping on the new ones, showing all the latest recycling guidelines.



I must have lifted up the lids on well over 500 recycling bins today. Although it feels like much more.

There were huge bins and slim ones, smelly ones and clean ones too. Such variety in both usage and contents. Even duvets had been stuffed in one particular bin. Now that was most definitely not on the list.

Anyway more on that another time. It's suffice to say it was a real fun day, with tales that I could probably never repeat.

But here are a few photos and videos of my very funny and surreal day.

Here's John the driver, loading up the bins onto the back of the wagon.


Did you know the loading mechanism automatically lifts the wheelie bin onto the back of the bin lorry! It's weight sensitive - which is why I stayed well away. There was no way I was going to chance my arm or indeed the rest of my body being lifted into there!


So here I am, keeping a very safe distance and dutifully sticking those stickers. Check out that fab Hi-Vis vest, which was kindly sent to me by the lovely people over at the Preston based charity Recycling Lives.




Peeling off some of the old stickers was not a very pleasant job.




Neither was lifting some of the bin lids.



Fortunately most of them were cleaner than this, but some had bird droppings and gunky stuff, having been stored underneath trees.

But I didn't have to do it all on my own. Here's Dan Sage, the Strategy & Policy Officer for St Edmundsbury Council, and who was the person behind last year's Zero Waste Week.



At one point the chaps (John and one of his colleagues, Scouse) disappeared through this gate into a garden. There I was thinking we were off for a cup of tea. It was still early in morning and I was in desperate need. But talk about wishful thinking. It emerged they were flats and they were just collecting the bins from the storage sheds. Oh well - I should have taken a flask.



Being a bit of a sociable old bird, the most odd thing about today was that there was hardly anyone around. Either folk were tucked up indoors or had gone off to work. Apart from a group of schoolkids dressed in Red Nose Day gear, the estate was deserted and I could have counted the people I saw on one hand.

But I did manage to catch up with a couple of folk and ask their opinions on the local recycling scheme. They are real supporters of the facilities we have and agreed to pose for the blog.

So here's a huge hello to Bury St Edmunds resident Bryan,




and to Mrs Dennis, who I also bumped into.



So after a brief chat, it was back to the bins.

But after being distracted, it's just a shame I lost the bin lorry. Serves me right I'd say.







So I just kept on sticking instead.




And finally it appeared.



But there was no rest for the wicked. So I kept on slapping on the stickers before finally catching up with Dan and going off to find the crew.

And it was good to hop into the cab and get a well-deserved rest.




Then we were off to the Transfer Station, a few miles away in Lackford, to drop off the load. For the crew, it was the second time today.










What a load of recycling eh. Just over 3 tonnes of it in fact!

Here's Tim who estimates the levels of contamination at the Transfer Station, before it gets sent to the Materials Reclamation Facility (MuRF) for sorting into bales of different recyclates.



It's impossible to root through everything at the transfer station, but it is here where any noticable contaminates - stuff that can't be recycled at the MuRF - get removed and transferred to the landfill pile.

And the landfill pile can be seen below, in bin bags over in the corner.




Before I left, the chaps at the Waste Transfer Station showed me their latest invention, which I thought should be patented for one of the big supermarkets.

Can you see what it is yet?

Methinks it's half shopping trolley half bin bag. Perfect for ripping off your packaging at the shop don't you think.


So, it was back to the yard and a big thank you to John the dustman - I mean Refuse Disposal Officer, for letting me ride on the bin lorry, ooops I mean wagon.

You see, I've even got to know the terminology.



And it was time to leave the yard and head off home.





I can really say it was an absolute privilege to see behind the scenes and witness what it must be like to work on the bins. And one thing's for sure, I'm going to be kinder to the bin men in future. They do a real grand job. I'll no longer lose my patience when stuck behind a bin lorry and I won't be chucking out all our paper at once. It certainly makes the recycling bins very heavy. These guys may be strong, but I'm sure they could still do with a break.

So thank you to St Edmundsbury Borough Council for putting up with my mad antics and to all you lovely people for sponsoring me. It's been great and I've noticed my Comic Relief fundraising page is already showing you've already donated an amazing £145. You are contributing to the most amazing appeal to help support those striken by poverty in the UK and abroad.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's been a real blast.

But would I do it again?

Hmmm...with my achey legs, I don't think so. Too much like hard work for a soft touch of blogger like me.

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Pondering rubbish

Blimey. Look what happened last week. I did so much thinking, by Friday my brain hurt so much I disappeared into oblivion, not even leaving an "au revoir".

What's been weighing on my mind is this week's challenge. This time last year I was nervous. The prospect of doing a Zero Waste Week and trying to throw nothing away for seven days seemed difficult enough, but the idea of a Maximum Waste Week, which is what I've got planned for next week, seems even harder somehow and is pushing a whole range of awkward buttons that a ZWW never did.

Don't get me wrong. Even though we are good at keeping our rubbish very low, I haven't become so obsessed that I panic if we throw away more than our regular monthly carrier bag's worth. I've learned to accept that some things happen that are just out of my control and it doesn't matter in the great scheme of things.

Indeed take the other week,when the lovely folk at Abel & Cole sent me a free range chicken to try out. Of course I am always grateful for free food, especially if it's of good quality and has been ethically produced, but as I got ready to put it in the oven, I saw something rather scary poking out from between its legs.


Giblets!

Yes, blimmin' giblets.

I'm sorry, I know I'm the squeamish type - and even typing the word is making me feel ill - but confronting such things, particularly in an unexpected manner makes me feel positively sick.

I tried my best. I closed my eyes, stuffed my hand into the crevice and yanked them out to cries of "eurgh, yuk and ick". It was a scene that resembled a challenge from "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here", but in my very own kitchen. Following the momentary madness I put them in the box and popped them in the fridge, thinking that I'd ring Mrs Green over at MyZeroWaste for advice on how to deal with them. But I was in denial. I didn't really want to know how to deal with giblets so in the fridge they stayed until all I could do was throw them away.

But the giblets were only part of the story. The afternoon that I cooked the chicken, Mr A was three hours late from work. By the time he arrived home the chicken was so shrivelled it looked more like a poussin and as for me, my tiredness had left me in a careless disposition, culminating in opening a cupboard door to pull down a couple of plates and knocking over several cups and other assorted crockery. I could only watch helplessly as they tumbled out of the cupboard, all in slow motion, and smashed the vase and glass that stood on the worktop below.

All wrapped up in a couple of bags and placed in a cardboard box for good measure, the broken bits went in the bin along with a couple of dirty nappies left by some little visitors we had entertained that week.

And I never thought about it again, until a lady got in touch to see if I'd had the opportunity to write a blogpost about the Abel & Cole chicken. How she laughed when she heard my tale of woe. I think she understood how the misadventure would not have been the fairest review of what should have been a delicious wholesome meal.

So you can imagine that the amount of rubbish we threw out that week had not just doubled, it had probably quadrupled.

Throwing away the fall-out of an unexpected set up unfortunate circumstances is one thing. However this week's challenge is another.

This week's challenge is going to be difficult indeed, a Maximum Waste Week eh! Trying to throw away as much as I can. At face value, it might seem simple. Throwing away rubbish is so easy isn't it. After all, I never used to give it any thought at all. But having spent a year of reducing, reusing and recycling and changing our shopping habits to suit our local recycling facilities, can I really go against all that, even for just one week.

It would mean changing habits that have been normalised into everyday behaviour, so much so that everything we do is now automatic. And with all I've learned during the 15 months, there is also the issue of responsibility to address. Having visited landfill last year and understanding why we have to reduce our waste, will I really be able to go back to throwing away food waste and the stuff that we used to bin, now knowing that most of it is recyclable?

That's why I feel nervous and it shows that knowledge and awareness are crucial tools that underpin the waste management issues that affect the UK.

And I can add to that the importance of respect.

Respecting the environment at large, and recognising that our actions have a wider implication on the climate, other countries, other species and our future generations.

Oh dear it looks like I'm doing a lot of thinking again! And you all know where that gets me!

And just before I go to the shops too.

Yes, It's time to head to the supermarket for my first challenge and see if I can fill my trolley with a whole load of rubbish for me to deal will.

Sounds easy in principle, but will it be so easy in practice?

I'm already wondering whether I can really leave my reusable bags at home and pick up some flimsy plastic bags at the checkout. You'll have to come back tomorrow and find out. In the meantime, please wish me a whole dose of luck!

Oh to think I'm doing all this to raise money for Comic Relief.

After all my thinking and worrying, I'll be more in need of Pain Relief! So please feel free to donate any cash to cover the cost of a few packets of Paracetamol here. You can be sure it will go a long, long way and you will be supporting a very good cause indeed.

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