St andrews to london with an iphone

It's probably a sign that something has gone seriously wrong in my life when it's 1.45 am and I'm writing a blog post about bins. But really, it is something that vexes me, and vexes me greatly.

Here in charming Fife we have some interesting waste collection policies. We have wheelie bins, and already we have to be careful to use them, and them only, and not to overfill them, lest we incur the wrath of the local council. We have one wheelie, as every house in Fife gets, regardless of the number of occupants. So our single neighbour gets one, and our house of four students also gets one, despite producing four times the waste. And of course we can't put out extra bags, so we have to take part in some exciting bin-stamping rituals, in which Steve (6' 7", 17st) has to climb up a stepladder and jump up and down on our bags to make enough room. But we managed, mostly, and all was well, we avoided annoying our neighbours, we avoided bad smells, and all was happiness and light.

Recently, our local council, in their infinite wisdom, decided to reduce us to fortnightly collections. We haven't been given bigger bins. We just have to fit two weeks worth of rubbish in one bin, that is also the same amount as one person uses in one week.

Now, there is a reason for this; it's not just a mindless scheme to annoy the students (who, as they're usually in full houses, no doubt produce the most waste) by our studentophobe counciller, Dorothea Morrison. They're trying to encourage us to recycle more, and produce less landfill waste, as the council gets charged for the was it sends to the landfill. But they haven't given us any more recycling opportunities. They've increased the collections, yes, but it's only of cardboard waste. Which isn't exaclty prevalent.

The council at home in sunny Hemel Hempstead collects newspaper, cardboard, paper, plastic, glass, and ca ns at the roadside. Every week. And the landfill waste alternates with garden waste. Now, fair enough, we don't need garden waste to be taken away. But given that the main hobby of students here seems to be drinking (at least in the this household), why can't they take glass away at the very least? And given the quality of what some of my flatmates cook, tin cans too. There is one main recycling point in town. Glass bottles, even empty, are heavy, especially in the quanitities that we produce them. We don't live directly in the centre of town. We are also continually being encouraged not to drive cars in town, and most people live without access to one. So we currently have recylcing mountain of bottles in the house at the mo, that will be taken to the bottle bank at somepoint when we have time to actually load up the car with them and drive somewhere.

Until then, the bottles pile up, the bins pile up in the garage, and we run around at 2am on alternate Mondays, jumping on rubbish and making sure our bin lids aren't sticking up.

If I paid council tax, I wouldn't be. If you get my drift.