Dear Philippa,

In the years leading up to retirement, I often thought about what I would do with myself when the big day arrived. I would have freedom unknown since childhood and, my pension being in the safe hands of that prudent Scottish bank manager Gordon Brown, the world would be my lobster. Would I take up fly fishing, or golf? Would I spend my afternoons reading cheap fiction, or relaxing in the arms of a catamite? Would I buy a flat in Bridlington, or become a caravaner?

None of these as it turned out. I developed a single, all-consuming passion: bin-day, and the waste disposal and recycling policies not only of my own Council but everyone else’s as well. And other policies too when I have the time, for they can offer invaluable clues as to where in the country I am likely to find features of bin-day practices that reveal borderline lunacy. Who knows what the arrangements might be in Warwickshire, for example, where the council is busy spending money fitting out all elderly residents with taxpayer subsidised slippers with nifty velcro fasteners in the interests of Health and Safety. They define the elderly as anyone fifty and over, which must include a lot of council employees; if they cannot manage their own footware are they fit to manage public services?

Before I retired and moved to rural North Yorkshire I lived in Notting Hill Gate where rubbish was collected twice a week (now, I hear, three times a week) and where the local authority understands the duty to dispose of rubbish was laid upon them for reasons of public health and not to indulge the whims of a fastidious public. Where I now live the Council collects general waste, food and so on, every two weeks and recyclable material on alternate weeks, but only garden waste, glass, cans and newspapers (but “no envelopes, thank you” – why?). Not cardboard, not plastic.

Now, this more or less suits me because I have a garage to house the two wheelies and two crates provided by the Council, plus two further containers (cardboard and plastic) provided by me, and taken by me to the tip where I have made lots of new friends. But it doesn’t suit everyone, people in small cottages or without cars, for example, and people with large families. There is no policy that suits everyone. Recently however my Council has came up with a refinement that makes me wonder if its officers live in a parallel universe. For the whole of January, February and March they will not collect the garden waste wheelies, because there will be no garden waste. I cannot be described as an enthusiastic gardener, in fact I hate the activity, but even I know that this is nonsense. There will be savings, we are told and a positive impact on the Council’s carbon emissions (or as the local paper called them “carbon omissions” – have they not done the things that they ought to have done?). The savings, mainly diesel, will not include any reduction of the payroll as the operatives will be redeployed on leaf collection. I don’t know what kind of trees grown in the splendid grounds surrounding the Council offices, but I do know that in the rest of the district the leaves begin to fall in late September and by the end of November it was all over for another year. Do they think we are stupid, which on the basis of this and other evidence I think they do, or are they stupid themselves, a possibility to be considered at least? Will the leaf gatherers not burn diesel, and so adversely impact the Council’s budget and carbon omissions? Who is on the committee that came up with this wheeze – no doubt called the Winterisation Committee?

Some Councils (not mine, yet) are issuing “food waste caddies” as a further refinement, in other words slop buckets. Do they think that by renaming these unpleasant articles caddies we shall think that we are involved in some dainty activity along the lines of afternoon tea? And that “going forward”, as they like to say, the people will be even happier? Who can say.

Getting back to these Warwickshire slippers. I know a number of old people who wear loosely fitting slippers, and there is certainly an element of risk in this but there is a benefit to them – they can put them on and take them off themselves, a bit of independence they value. They have decided that the risk is acceptable. Has it not occurred to these Warwickshire pen pushers that the very people they think they are helping will not, with their inflexible backs and arthritic fingers, be able to get down there to fiddle and fix these municipal jobs anyway.

Regards

Howard