Three happy people!

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A couple of years ago we created a large pond in our garden, but the snag was that we were then left with big piles of topsoil, even bigger piles of clay subsoil and two heaps of rocks. And they’re not even good quality rocks, it’s almost as if they haven’t been ‘cooked’ long enough, they break fairly easily and start to crumble, so not much use for building walls or anything like that. I’ve put rows of them around the boundary of our garden (under shrubs), given some away to anyone who wanted some, smashed some up and used the bits to fill holes in our path… but by now I am heartily sick of looking at them. And I've given myself tennis elbow due to smashing rocks with a sledge hammer! We already filled eight skips with clay and it was getting really expensive so we couldn’t really justify getting any more. Then the government announced a change in waste disposal regulations, meaning that all councils had to accept a certain amount of DIY waste free of charge. Before this people would be charged for disposing of things like plasterboard, tiles, old kitchen units etc. so not surprisingly fly-tipping was a problem, so hopefully this might help. Well I wasn’t sure if rocks really counted as DIY waste but I didn’t want to be charged to dispose of it. So yesterday I followed all the rules and filled in an online application, then filled ten buckets with rocks (yes I could have used bigger tubs, but then I wouldn’t be able to lift them over the side of the rubble container!) and drove round to the recycling centre. As I was emptying my buckets another man drove up and put in two mirrors. It seemed a real waste, they were undamaged and quite nice looking, I was sure somebody somewhere would want them! Luckily he didn’t just chuck them in to smash, but he carefully placed them against the inside. So after emptying my next bucket, when no-one was looking, I carefully lifted one out again and sneaked it into my car. Then the same with the next bucket (you might wonder why this has to be sneaky – the council claim that once anything is put into one of the waste containers it is their property and taking it out again – even if it is something you want and can use, which you would think would be a good thing since they say they want to reduce waste - would be considered theft). I don’t actually need any mirrors myself but I was sure someone would like them, so I advertised on Freegle and sure enough people did want them and the same afternoon two people came to collect a mirror each and went away very happy. And so was I because I hate to see good things wasted All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2024.