One day recently the bus was held up by a bin wagon on its rounds. Heart sink moment – we’ll be here for a while, there are not many places on the A6 where anyone, let alone a bus, can get round one of those; there are not even that many places where a bus can get round a cyclist - but that’s a rant for another day.
I was wrong about the bin wagon – it moved quickly on to the next stop, then the one after that where the bus had chance to go round, but not before I had chance to appreciate the efficiency of the operation these days.
Only two men, plus driver who had no need to get out of the cab to help as the wheelie bin was moved the few feet across the pavement by one man, onto the hoist, up, tip, down, back to the garden gate. Quiet, too. The second man had already moved on to the next house.
I could also see why an overfilled-bin with half open lid could disrupt the smoothness of the operation.
Which gave me an idea. Dustbins are a very touchy subject at the moment, hedged about as they seem to be by pernickety or incomprehensible rules, no more weekly collections of the smelly stuff, and possible fines for getting it wrong.
If everybody could see why overfilled bins are a problem, make life more difficult for everybody else, they would be less likely to grumble & instead take pride in doing their bit for the greater good & a reduction in our council taxes*.
We don’t need lectures, especially not from politicians (who produce more rubbish than we do & probably use their expenses to pay someone else to get rid of it) or over paid council officials with gold plated pensions, or yet more leaflets to put straight into the recycling bin.
But a funny video on YouTube might do it.
A bin man hero who remains philosophical & can smile through the trials & tribulations of a round, speeded up like that London to Brighton in 60 seconds film that the BBC used to use to fill the space between programmes & which everybody of a certain vintage will remember even half a century after they last saw it. Made, not by some hotshot director from a high priced ad agency but, in the spirit of the Big Society, by bin men possibly working with a group of college students.
If it was popular enough – especially with the young – it would do a lot to turn the scathing around to be directed at those who selfishly think that it is for others to deal with the thoughtless way in which they make their mess into an unnecessary problem for somebody else to cope with.
*In our dreams
