I like newspapers. I buy one nearly every day and attempt to read it on the train. Sometimes I nab a free paper if I need something extra to read on the journey home. I also get a free paper shoved through my letterbox every week whether I want it or not. And all these newspapers always end up sitting in my hallway, in a big pile, in a very big pile. I have an awful lot of newspapers.
I like to recycle my newspapers. When you have a lot of newspapers it's only fair to recycle them rather that chuck them into landfill. But people don't make it easy for me. There are no recycling bins on the tube, because non-existent terrorism is more important than recycling. There are no recycling bins outside the entrance to Bow Road station, so I can't chuck anything away there. There are no recycling bins on my walk home, not without wandering a couple of minutes out of my way. And there are no council recycling bins at my house either, only normal bins. If I want to recycle, it takes effort.
I'd like to recycle my newspapers but Tower Hamlets don't make it easy. They're starting to try, sort of, at last, but they're still not trying very hard. Only in the last few months, where I live at least, have they started offering doorstep collections. Council workers introduced this new system by dumping not enough pink recycling sacks on my communal doorstep, with no instructions attached. Each sack is printed with details of what can be recycled, but not what to do with the sack when it's full. To discover the day of my recycling collection I have to go to the Tower Hamlets website and plough through 89 impenetrable pages of pdf to find my street. Or alternatively I can email someone at the council and they'll look through the 89 page pdf on my behalf and email me back. I think my day's Tuesday. Or maybe Thursday. Or possibly Monday or Friday, I don't know, it's bloody hard to follow.
If I try to recycle my newspapers in a pink sack, as directed, it goes wrong. On day 1 I leave my pink sack out on the pavement awaiting collection. On day 2 I note that my pink sack is still where I left it and that the collecting lorry hasn't been. On day 3 I spot that my pink sack has been kicked across the pavement by some passing ruffian and the top has come untied risking major spillage. And on day 4 I despair that all of my newspapers are now scattered across the pavement or lying soggy in the gutter, revealing my reading matter to all and sundry. By day 5 it's clear it would have been better for the environment had I not attempted to recycle my newspapers at all. Is it any surprise that on day 8 I'm reticent to attempt the same thing again.
I usually end up recycling my newspapers via the pre-doorstep method. I bundle them all up in a binbag and struggle out into the street carrying my oversized package. I manouevre my way past pedestrians and heavy traffic, taking care not to topple over and spill everything. I stagger for several minutes to my local recycling centre, where I'm usually scrutinised by three drunkards and a stumpy dog. If I'm lucky one of the five purple recycling bins has some space left, and I can post my newspapers a few at a time into the inadequate gap. If I'm unlucky all five bins are full and I'm left looking like an idiot clutching a stack of increasingly unstable newspapers. At this point I can either dump my papers beside the bin (fail), wander over to a nearby tower block and dump my papers in their recycling bin (naughty) or else lug everything back home and try again later (fat chance, life's too short).
I've not recycled enough newspapers lately, because it's too much effort. Indeed I've failed to throw out a single newspaper since the start of the year, and so they've piled up and piled up. I've got into a vicious circle - they pile up, so they're more effort to take out, so they pile up more, so they're even more effort to take out, etc. I now have as many as 134 newspapers (and newspaper sections) needing to be recycled, plus 25 magazines, which adds up to a whopping foot-and-a-half-high stack of newsprint awaiting disposal. It'd be easy with a car (and a boot), but it's less fun on foot. It'd be easy with a decent doorstep collection, but alas this is Tower Hamlets. So it's not easy.
I still like newspapers, but they're proving increasingly difficult to discard. I really ought to lug my mega-pile across to the recycling centre, probably in two batches of 67, but I fear I'll drop them all on the way (and the bins are probably full). I could try leaving them on the doorstep in a big pink sack, but I don't believe they'd disappear (except into the street). Or I could just throw them all into my normal non-recycling bin, just to get rid of them (which would be quick and easy, but would also be naughty because they'd all end up in landfill). Ah, this would be so easy if I hadn't developed a non-recycler's guilt complex. But I really need to sort this problem out soon, before my hallway becomes overwhelmed by towering newsprint. Quick, because there'll be 140 by nightfall...
