Cheers To The Girl in Bangladesh!

My regular readers will remember that I wrote about the dangers of recycling when I injured my foot through stomping on Sam's beer cans. This had to be done so that I could compact them down into the bottom of bags of foil and aluminium for Church. Feeling slightly embarrassed that we were now contributing beer cans in quite a big way and that we might be thought of as secret drinkers approaching alcoholism, I hid the cans under all the other foil from pies and things.

What does Church want with them anyway, you might well ask? Well they sponsor a little girl in Bangladesh with the proceeds of the aluminium after it is sold. This provides her with a meal a day and an education that she would not otherwise receive. So I suppose it could be an incentive for my son to drink up!

I don't really care too much about what other people think of me. In fact the older I get, the more I can get away with bizarre behaviour, as I can always blame my age and have been doing that for years! Several bloggers advised me to purchase a can crusher to save my feet from getting further damaged and I am now the proud owner of a deluxe model that is mounted on the kitchen wall. It is quite therapeutic crushing down cans! There's something a bit pathetic about that statement, isn't there? If the lever of the can crusher is pulled correctly and the can turned upside down so that the air is forced out of it, all is well. However, every now and then the crumpled can is liable to leap out when you least expect it to. There should be a warning on these contraptions to use protective goggles!

Now I have developed a horrible habit of picking up cans from the pavement. Usually they have been flung from cars onto the pavement and I turn the cans upside down to let left over liquid to trickle into the gutter. Sometimes I get odd looks as I really don't look like a down and out who needs to slurp down other people's leftovers hurriedly.

I have been known to say, "If everybody picked up a can, the street would be a lot cleaner!" I am also thinking of the little girl in Bangladesh, as I'm sure she doesn't care where the money for her meal comes from. Whether its from coke or beer cans, from the street or anywhere else.

After my can crushing, I wash my hands carefully in case someone really horrid dropped the cans and I watch with fascination as the bag fills up quite quickly with little two inch condensed can stumps.

So I don't really care anymore who thinks what! After all, I know that I hardly drink at all and I say, "Cheers," to the Bangladeshi girl, when others do! 

The Dangers of Recycling!

A few months ago I noticed I was limping because of a pain in my right foot. The whole foot felt as though it was on fire & really hurt when I walked. My chiropractor pulled the affected foot about & asked if there was anything different in my lifestyle. After a very long, hard think, I realized what had caused it. Recycling!

Since Sam & family had come to live with us, there seemed to be much more to recycle.  All his beer & lager cans had been stamped on to make them more compact, using my right foot. (After a course of treatment, the foot pain eased, but this cost a fortune!) As we give all aluminium to a church scheme sponsoring a little girl in India, I was becoming embarrassed by the sudden influx of beer cans & tried to arrange them at the bottom of the bag, hidden from view. Didn't want people thinking that Harry or I were were verging on alcoholism! Now I use a little hammer to flatten the tins & my foot is back to normal. For people like us, who have no garage, recycling can present problems. Our kitchen is overwhelmed by little bags, boxes & bins, each packed with something or other that we have been urged to save by the Council.

The large wheelie bins are only emptied once a fortnight, so we really do need to recycle or there'd be no room left for real rubbish & anything left outside the bin will not be collected.Just looking at some of the houses round here, with small front gardens filled with bags of rubbish, makes it obvious that they are multi let homes. The bins  overflowing with rubbish do attract rats. (I will write about MY rat very soon!)

The Council also provides a box for a variety of things, including paper, glass, foil, tins, spectacles, shoes, batteries & textiles. This is emptied every week & believe me, is heavy when filled! We have separate compost containers provided for house hold food waste & I also have two compost bins in the small garden, but have stopped using these for now, on account of the large number of  fruit flies that somehow or other find their way into the kitchen. For a small yearly rent we have another large wheelie that we can fill with garden waste & cardboard. All this is made into compost & probably sold at a profit by the Council. Bit of a cheek that!

All this recycling is very time consuming & you have to be fairly fit. If you don't get a hernia or slipped disc lifting the heavy boxes, or damaged feet crushing the drinks cans, then you might forget what goes where or which day things are collected. You really need to be with it! Oh, & I still have to walk half a mile to the nearest plastic bank as the Council does not yet pick up plastic for some obscure reason. Is our city unique with all this nonsense? And why don't we get a reward for all the hard work?