The great bin debate rumbles on. Yes, it’s an uber-local blog here, but I wanna try and get across to you how our little local community works. The local newspaper, the Chase Post / Burntwood Post is edited by a guy called Mike Lockley. The following is an excerpt from his weekly … ermm.. editorial…
“It’s dog eat dog when it comes to this new bi-weekly bin collection – as long as you don’t put the remains of the eaten dogs in your green bin, because they won’t collect it. In desperation, I’ve resorted to emptying excess rubbish into the neighbouring bins during the cover of night, I’ll admit.
‘I can assure you that it’s not mine.’
…I heard Mrs Powell, aged 87, tell the posse of bin men this morning as they fished a 1996 Pirelli calendar from her garden waste container, along with a ‘Windsurfers Do It Standing Up’ tee-shirt.
My bins have been spiked, too. I discovered a Val Doonican vinyl album in one. How embarrassing would that’ve been when the dustmen rummaged through my rubbish? Got it out just in time – and replaced it with three empty tubes of haemorrhoid cream and a Playboy magazine.
What upsets me the most is the family across the road, who we call The Scutters, have got three bins – and he hasn’t worked for six years on account of his bad back which wasn’t bad enough to stop him doing-up his Ford Mondeo.
‘How come I can’t have three bins?’, I bellowed at a council environmental health official.
‘Because you haven’t got seven kids, Mr Lockley’
So much for safe sex, I told the bloke. What kind of message is that for our teenagers? Get yourself pregnant and you’ll get a council house. Get yourself pregnant five times and you’ll get a ruck of bins. How many kinds do you need for a conservatory ?
‘That’s certainly not how pregnancy works,’ said the council bod.
So how does it work?, I demanded.
‘Well, the male sperm fertilizes the female…’
Bloody clever dick. Hung up on him I did.
Colin, sick to death of stinking refuse on the doorstep, decided it was time for action. He piled the whole festering bin into his motor and took it to the town hall.
‘I showed ’em,’ he boasted. ‘I walked into the reception and said to the woman, ‘Where do I dump all this lot, because I’m not having it in my driveway attracting flies and rats?’
‘The woman looked at me, a bit shocked like, and said there’s some containers at the rear car park. Told me to put the bottle in the one marked, ‘Glass’, paper in the one marked ‘paper’ and grass cuttings in the one marked ‘green waste’. I showed her.. I only went and did it.”