Recycling

Everything is recycled from our front door here in S Wales. And we recycle everything we can, especially since the litter police changed their landfill policy and now refuse to pick up black bags. Like ever. Now landfill rubbish must be disposed of in council issue grey bags, a limited supply of which is given to each household. Worry ye not. We don't use that many black bags anyway because we recycle anything the council will take.

This normally occurs with such minimal intrusion into everyday life that it's not worth a thought or a blog. But we recently missed the Monday food bin collection 3 weeks in a row and things got unpleasant. Our reasons were sound yet avoidable:


Week 1: Slept in and missed it. Usually up for school but it's the holidays. Never mind- there's only 2x little bags in there- plenty of room for more.

Week 2: Off on holiday- yipee! Fridge cleaned out (which was a mank job in itself) and contents bagged and added to the food bin. It's getting full in there now. Largely due to the whole butternut squash we all forgot about and 1/2 melon which adopted the smell of salami after being in residence next to it in the fridge. Bleugh. Food-bin left in front garden for collection in 2 days time...

Week 3: ... Ah- but bin didn't cross the sacred mono-blocked line onto the tarmaced pavement and our food recycling is there to greet us when we return. Food bin people are notoriously wary of reaching 2' into a resident's private front garden and collecting anything that may be lurking in one of their own receptacles, lest they be sued for theft.

The next food collection is still 4 days away and we have a problem. The bin is 3/4 full of decomposing foodstuffs, a small colony of maggots and several dozen adult flies (who are probably babysitting).

It is rank in there. The food bin people will never take this on Monday! Even if I position it correctly on the pavement and gift wrap it.

Keith is away at a gig. In-laws will be here on Monday. I want this sorted well before then anyway. I have to man up and deal with the bin. I clean the entire house and cook a proper meal and everything. I am working towards the domestic epicentre of foulness. Tea will be ready in maybe 10 minutes. Do I deal with this now before eating and get it out the way? Or wait until after tea and maybe see everything again?

Do it now...  Do it now...  Do it now...  I summon the children and give them jobs:

M: Hold the Dettol wipes and bleach. I'll need those in a minute.
J: Stand there and hold all this brown packing paper and extra large compostable bags. Open one of them now, ready for the skanky food.
E: Bring me basin of water with bleach and a cloth that will be binned after this is all over. 

I approach the bin with marigold gloves and a certain amount of trepidation. You know how little boys are meant to be into bugs and spiders and all things a little bit gross? Not my kids. They already want to be somewhere else. Jackson looks quite pale actually. Madi is standing 10 feet away, eyes shut and holding her nose.

I take a deep breath and open the bin. Flies buzz out. Maggots are squirming among the rancid contents. The oldest bags have bio-degraded and split apart. The oldest things that used to be food have liquified. Some of the maggots have drowned in it.

How can stuff that is essentially edible and nutritious transform into something so corrupt and poisonous in less than a month? I could add a picture of maggots and rubbish right here. But that wouldn't convey the smell- It was e v i l.

I started picking out what I could using the brown paper to reinforce the fragile bags. J couldn't open the big compostable bags so E took over, holding one open for me while trying to remain as far away as possible from what I was holding. I lowered the decomposing food into the new bag as carefully as possible. But there was a certain amount of spatter. And maggots fell onto the driveway.

M and J protested loudly and ran inside. E desperately wanted to join them but I growled 'Stay where you are and hold the bag!!' in a voice that scared both of us.

Down and down I reached into the rancid soup of disintegrating food-bin filth. And slowly transferred it bit by bit into the bag Ethan was reluctantly holding.

Eww Eww Eww...

It was the singular most disgusting thing I have ever had to do in my whole life. And I have done a fair few disgusting things. I used to be a nurse- I got paid to do some of them. I have smiled and chatted with elderly patients and not gagged while dressing necrosing leg ulcers. I've had 3 babies and been involved in more than one drunken night out which ended with someone losing a night's worth of vodka in reverse. I have inserted one of my own fingers inside the body of another human being in order to deliver a prescribed medication. I have been involved in the unblocking of portable toilets at festivals which involved handling used tampons that were not my own. 

This was worse.

Once the solid contents had been evacuated, there was 4-5 inches of putrid orange water in the bottom of the bin, with dozens of maggot carcases floating in it.

This was disposed of down the nearest drain, then the bin bleached and rinsed out three times. It is still recovering in the front garden. 

I spent a lonnnggg time in the bath and am recovering on the couch with a glass of wine. And I can still smell the bin.

Clutter (pt 2)

I have a mild form of clutter paralysis. It's like the opposite of hoarding, and something I believe will soon be recognised as the mental disorder obsessive-compulsive spartanism.

Having too much stuff around me stifles my ability to function, so I'm forever assessing what we need then recycling the things we don't. This can make visitors nervous sometimes. They fear they may find themselves either placed in a cupboard or put in my take to charity shop pile. I say 'mild' because I've read of people who suffer this far more intensely than me who constantly give away stuff they actually use or wear on a regular basis, whereas I only get rid of things that are actually redundant. (Although there have been a few fairly big exceptions to this over the years including a wardrobe which we could have done with 3 months after giving it away as we moved to another rental property and an external hard drive, which in my defence edged slowly towards the bin in the garage over a 6 month period. (I was giving it a chance you know? It didn't even try).

Spartanism extends to my digital activities too. My desktop looks like this:

If I'm working on something and save a few files on the desktop for convenience I MUST file or delete them before logging off, or deal with them FIRST THING the following day. Otherwise I feel like this:

Reports indicate that people will compulsively discard items like clothes, books and even expensive electronics and furniture in an effort to free themselves from what they consider to be clutter. It seems that people who compulsively throw objects out — the opposite of hoarding — are overwhelmed by possessions. Fewer belongings makes them feel more in control of their life and surroundings. (WiseGeek)

I totally relate to this. The more manic my life becomes, the less likely I am to ask the kids nicely to come back and pick up their nerf bullets / hello kitty trump cards / hand drawn tributes to our dead hamster Omnon / other assorted kiddie crap that is strewn around every room they've played in so far today, and will instead pick up a bin bag and yell 'I'm tidying up now!!.....'

The off switch to this behaviour can be triggered in various ways:

• Go on holiday (stay somewhere else for a few days and the neat rules don't seem to apply)
• Decorate (If the house is tipped up with brushes and rolls of wall paper, finishing THAT job overwrites any mental fixation with neatness)
• Have visitors / house guests over (ditto above- focus on people, not clutter)
• Move house (rather extreme I know, but it does have the same effect. And we have moved house quite a lot recently so it's been helpful therapy)

As long as one of the above happens fairly regularly it will prevent our home from looking like this:

So if you aren't doing anything today, please come round for coffee.