Soap Box Blog: Harry Potter and the emerald chest

“So, you’re saying all I have to do is put my junk in this box and it gets transformed into something new,” he said with a confused look on his bespectacled face.

“That is so, Harry. For this box is bestowed with a powerful magic,” said Dumbledore pointing to the red and gold box belonging to Gryffindor house.

“But our box doesn’t work,” screamed Harry’s nemesis Draco Malfoy as he threw the green and silver Slytherin box across the room.

“Ah, Mr Malfoy,” said Dumbledore with a wry smile. “There is indeed magic in your box. It just requires a different sort of junk.”

(With apologies to JK Rowling)

I’m due to move house in a couple of weeks, and to be honest I’m dreading it. And it’s not just the prospect of packing everything up and then unpacking it at the other end.

The fact is that, for the third time in two years, I’ve got to get used to a whole new way of recycling, despite only moving seven miles across town.

Where I am now, I have a green box that is collected once a week. The service accepts, among other things, plastic bottles, glass jars, drinks cans and, curiously, engine oil. It does not take cardboard or drinks cartons.

At my new house, the council will provide me with an orange bag to put out for collection and, joy of joys, I will be able to recycle cardboard and drinks cartons. But no longer batteries or shoes.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for local government and decisions taken close to people. But given that in those countries where recycling is considered a success it’s centrally coordinated, it strikes me we should scrap the system where every local authority goes its own way.

My suggestion, for what it’s worth, is that we need six different systems across the country. Urban, suburban and rural and, within each category, densely and sparsely populated. Surely, that would cover most people?

Of course, getting away from the current system would require the local authorities giving up some of their power. And that, I suspect, would require some very dark magic indeed.

What do you think of the recycling services in your county? Log in below and let us know.

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