22/02/14 –

Then I had a revelation. I took a slightly less scary route through the industrial estate I lived on to get to school and there it was. A beacon of hope. A shining flare of prospect. A beam of promise. A recycling bin.

When you say it out loud it sounds so sad but there it was. A recycling bin – no more than one hundred yards round the corner from my kitchen.

That evening – my hope foolishly renewed – I set up recycling boxes in the communal kitchen. I sacrificed two of my favourite cardboard Ikea boxes and fashioned whimsical little labels for them. Something like – ** PAPIER ** and ** BOUTEILLE ET CANNETTES ** in careful swirly french letters. Thinking about it now makes me wince.

The boxes went unacknowledged for a few days until unrinsed bottles et canettes started showing up along with misconceived ideas of what can be recycled. Plastic sleeves, cartons, punnets and used clingfilm – when these things showed up I just plucked them out.

But soon the neatly defined boxes were stained with tinned tomato residue and dregs of vinegar and beer.

I always bore the brunt of it because having set up the boxes I couldn’t very well start throwing my weight around, asking people to empty the boxes or be more careful about what they put in the boxes. I probably already came off as a fastidious arse.

One weekday evening I wobbled down in the dusky half light to empty the boxes in the dodgy alley where the recycling bin lived. Key fob between my teeth and kicking open the doors and gates I met along the way due to my heavy stinking load, I tried to feel like any of it was worth while.

When I got to the spot where the bin had previously sat, all that met me was last week’s beer stain on the pavement.

It was gone, never to be seen again.