Rubbish
Before I defected to the land of milk and cookies on the other side of that big blue thing on the map, I had the delightful pleasure of living under the watchful eye of Islington Borough Council. North London in general, but particularly Islington, is home to a right bunch of sanctimonious grow-your-own sanitary towel types who sit around discussing how little Tarquin isn’t going to have his MMR jab as it might turn him into a special needs child and how we’re all going to be poisoned by wi-fi. Suffice to say, greeny-ness is pretty high on the council’s agenda.
Now before I get gazzed into oblivion by people telling me that it’s attitudes like this that are causing the destruction of our beautiful earth etc etc etc, let me just clarify; I don’t go round clubbing seals, I don’t sit round of a weekend burning volatile plastics and taking needless cheap flights. Hell, I don’t even own a car. While I doubt my gene pool will ever be around long enough for my children or my children’s children (note to environmental campaigners, “children’s children”? Most people call them “grandchildren.” But as ever, I digress…) to notice the polar ice caps disappear faster that the ice in my vodka tonic, I do agree that a degree of consideration about how we treat the planet is warranted.

Which is why when I moved into my new flat, I rang Islington Council and asked for a recycling box. I’d seen them on the street, so I figured I’d get one too. “No problem,” the lady told me. “We use bags in your area, you should get one in 10 working days.” So I waited. I gave them a month as I figured, it’s the council, they take their time about these things. A month later I call back. “Sorry, we appear to have lost your enquiry, one will be sent to you in 10 working days. “ So I wait. A month later, nada. I browse the website, which tells you in glorious detail about the recycling projects they run in the area, how many collection points they have for bottles, how they even have a wormery so if you compost stuff but don’t have a garden your food waste can be put to good use. Meanwhile I’m chucking away area the size of Wales (the standard unit of measurement for such things) worth of paper every week. I call back and a lady kindly informs me “we don’t actually recycle in your street.” “You do,” I reasoned back, “I’ve seen the boxes outside.” “No, no, there’s no recycling on your street.” “There is, you know.” And so forth until I’d chewed through the phone cord and had lie down in dark room with a cup of Complan and a flannel on my head.

But never say “Islington council are a bunch of useless cunts”, no, not till you’ve tried again. This time to be told that they did indeed service apartment blocks 1-55, but as I lived in block 56 I was unable to access recycling facilities. “Why?” I asked. “Well, we only go up as far as block 55.” “But that’s next door.” “Yes, but you’re not on the route, we stop at 55.” “But it’s 2 feet away. 2 FEET. Can you not extend the route, it’s not like I’m asking you to scale the north face of the Eiger to get to my block. Give me a recycling bag, I’ll leave it outside block 55.” “Only residents on the route are entitled to recycling bags.” “Well extend the route.” “I’m not authorised.” “Tell me who is and I’ll call them.” “I can’t give out that information.”

Then I remembered something my mum once said. Don’t get mad, go public.

“Right well thank you for your help, I’m sure the Evening Standard (*) will be fascinated to learn how Islington Council consider themselves to be greener than thou and all about saving the planet yet can’t be bothered to get off their arses to add one block of flats onto an existing recycling route. And yes I have made a note of the names of everyone I’ve spoken to and yes I will be cc-ing your superiors once I find out who they are, which, rest assured, I will.”

We had a recycling bag 24 hours later.

(*) For those not resident in that London the Evening Standard is the perfect vehicle for this sort of petty threat. The Standard can be guaranteed to take a perfectly innocuous story on a given day and turn it into the coming of Armageddon. For example, a tube train got stuck in summer in a tunnel. It was quite busy and warm. People were uncomfortable. The headline in the Standard? “900 commuters trapped in death tube.”
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Sat 28 Jul 2007, 17:42, Reply)