Dialogue: Now that's the rubbish sorted

By ROANNE PARKER

I've been recycling my little heart out ever since I got my first recycling bin. I'm a good citizen you see, deep down, and I like to feel that I'm doing my bit to save the planet.

It works really well, especially when I remember to line the bin up under the kitchen window so I can just open the casement and drop the empty receptacle into the bin with a satisfying clunk.

I find cans usually hit the spot without any problems, but plastic milk containers bounce out most of the time and I have to pop them in next time I'm outside.

The wine bottles are a bit dodgy, in that the bin sits in a concrete driveway, but I'm proud to say that I have not lost one yet.

Now I've got a big bin and a little bin, two recycling bins and a pile of newspapers, and I'm at peace.

I was terribly disappointed when I used the little bin instead of the big one as soon as I got it, because the rubbish collectors left it unemptied. The sods. Apparently I was too quick on the uptake, but I've always been an early adopter; I can't help it.

You would think they would have been pleased with my instantly reduced landfill fodder. So then I had to wheel it back in, pull all the bags out and stick them into the old smelly one, then I filled it up some more and stuck it out and, sure enough, they took it.

It had me shaking my head somewhat, but then I waited until I was supposed to like the good citizen that I try to be.

Okay, to be honest it wasn't me who did the rubbish reshuffle, it was the mad Scotsman, but that's what blokes are for, I reckon.

What else can we recycle?

I wish I was motivated enough to get a rainwater tank for the roof to wash the clothes in.

I hate paying for water; it goes against everything I believe in, such as preserving money for shoe-shopping.

I had a whinge about it to my brother on the phone earlier.

I knew he would sympathise because he lives in an idyllic valley in Marlborough and his water for the washing comes from the creek that runs along his land.

But no, he told me there's no such thing as free water, and I shouldn't think it was all beer and skittles getting water from the creek because he had to unscrew the filter thingy at the tap occasionally and empty little bugs out. So we all have to pay eventually, he said.

Well, I'll take the little bugs over a Metrowater bill any time, especially as I could stick them in a bag and send them off to school for show-and-tell with Miss Six. That's a double bonus.

Then my good old brother suggested I could buck the system if I just took a couple of empty jars to work and filled them up each day.

I told him it was a great idea, but I didn't have the heart to point out that it's tricky to supply a household with six showers a day, two loads of washing, about 10 toilet flushes and a few dozen kitchen-type activities with 700ml of water.

I think they get a bit slow in the cranium after too long in the country, even ones with once-genius IQs like my brother. I always said he was a refugee from his own intelligence but I think he's finally given it the slip.

It's great the way they indoctrinate children at school to recycle nowadays. They put us to shame. It was my son's insistence that we have to recycle paper that got me into it because they do it in their classrooms at school.

I love the way recycling paper frees me to take the junk mail out of the letterbox and stick it straight in the pile. I used to feel like I had to read it to justify adding it to the landfill but no more. Out it goes.

That reminds me of a letter I read in a paper in Melbourne last week.

It was from a woman who had a problem she was seeking advice about. When she lined her cat's kitty litter tray with newspaper, she invariably got someone, such as a tireless campaigner for children's rights or the Governor-General, face up in the tray.

She found it a bit disconcerting to see some amazingly good citizen staring at her from under a puddle of cat pee, and wondered what she should do about it. Tee hee hee. I love hearing about all the serious problems of the world.

In summary, if you need recycling advice, try the bin under the window trick.

And for goodness sake, use the classifieds for your cats.