Time for the return of the Rag & Bone man?

[Gastines]

Bleach? I thought everyone relied on Soda Crystals. About the only thing I can remember for washing up, unlike today when I look in our cupboards and find dozens of cleaners /soaps for every conceivable job.

 Back to the clothes. My first day at Bournemouth Grammar School, I was the ONLY boy wearing short trousers. Never did understand why mother cut pieces of cardboard to go in the bottom of my shoes, as all it did was soak up the rainwater.

Regards.

[Framboise]

On a similar vein about recycling.

Here in UK I can fill my blue-lidded recycling bin in a week if I really go at it so I guess I shall be off to the depot when we move to France with a car full of the stuff.

However, check this out for a laugh.   We get a glossy booklet about what we can recycle, saving the planet etc, so being a good gal I dutifully wash and sort all my stuff then place it all in my blue bin or the glass box.   Now I know for a fact (because we have a friend who has bought the contract at our local tip to sort through the junk for goodies) and he takes textiles & clothing for recycling that he sells at a pretty decent profit per tonne.    With this in mind I was sorting out some of hubby's old work clothes - the ones he has wiped mastic on, dripped paint on the legs then left with dried concrete on them making generally ruined and not suitable for giving to charity, but in the spirit of recycling I washed them and then put them into my blue bin.   WRONG!!!!!

On collection day I put my bins out in the allocated spot on the path.  Later on I see the lorry disappearing up the road and then find that they have left my bulging bin untouched, so I phone up the office to be told that because I have "Put unsuitable items into the blue bin, the crew have not taken them...".  At first they would not tell me what my "unsuitable items" were and refused to come to empty the bins, then after I persisted they admitted that my crime was three pairs of old jeans!!!  

So if I want to dispose of any more old jeans (undoubtedly infected with polonium 210, blue asbestos or suchlike) - I must not put them in recycling.  Even if they are eventually recycled!  

Now work that one out because I find it hard to find any sort of logic if the recycling unit won't handle textiles and our Wombling friend does.  Madness.

[Gardengirl]

Re: bleach

I remember in about 1952 our neighbours had put bleach in to an old lemonade bottle. Their youngest drank it. Terrible! All inside his mouth and throat were badly burned as were his chin and neck, poor soul!

I can't remember what bleach came in then, but rather thought it was plastic bottles.

We had the regular rag & bone man collecting around our estate; that part really took me back!

In our part of Berkshire the local council (Wokingham) has collected paper/card and tins/plastic for many years. We have to take glass to a nearby supermarket, and old carrier bags to another. We have several compost heaps in the garden, so don't really have much in the rubbish bin. However, we feel lucky to still have weekly collections of general rubbish, unlike so many places; several Reading Labour councillors lost their seats in the recent local elections partly because of the problem of fortnightly rubbish collections. This is so unsuitable for areas where there are rows of terraced houses; they have their huge rubbish bins and huge recycling bins out in the street (can't get them through the house to the back garden), so whole streets look very messy.

Jo 

[Russethouse]

However, we feel lucky to still have weekly collections of general rubbish, unlike so many places; several Reading Labour councilors lost their seats in the recent local elections partly because of the problem of fortnightly rubbish collections. This is so unsuitable for areas where there are rows of terraced houses; they have their huge rubbish bins and huge recycling bins out in the street (can't get them through the house to the back garden), so whole streets look very messy.

I have to admit  that I live in Reading and voted Conservative (which is far from a fore gone conclusion, I certainly didn't last time) because the candidate promised to press for a review of our rubbish collection regime and to vote against a one way IDR (Garden girl will understand this, esp as Wokingham have challenged Reading Councils decision). The Conservative candidate was also the only one who bothered to put any promotional literature out, so goodness knows if the others would have done the same. Her initiative swayed my vote.

As for rubbish collection, Garden Girl gets a weekly collection, my mother also gets a weekly collection (also in another part of Berks), ours is fortnightly. Not only that but in each area different things are permitted to be recycled, for instance we do not have a 'separate' glass box.....if we want to send garden waste (not household food scraps) we have to pay for a bin...£25 I think.

[Gastines]

Back to rubbish again.. With all the problems going on in the UK with recycling and taxes to be charged per bin, by weight etc, perhaps they should visit our commune tip. Apart from the 2 bins provided, normal rubbish emptied weekly,inc holidays, yellow recycling bin emptied fortnightly, we have a local tip for all types of stuff. You don't have to pay per visit,show your driving licence+ local utility bill to gain access, the place is kept spotless by one man,skips for various items and all garden waste is shredded up and can be taken away for mulch.Free of course. One notable benefit being the absence of fly-tipping and piles of rubbish by the road side. I suppose the simple solutions are too  hard to grasp by local councillors in UK and with no charge,25% isn't going into their pension fund.

Regards and back to the future.

[Framboise]

We here inN.E.Surrey are still on weekly collections, with glass and other recycleables taken on alternating weeks, but if you want a garden bag it will cost you £25 a year with collections fortnightly.  Frankly the garden bag is about big enough for the contents of one lawnmower box, let alone any other trimmings etc., so I thank heavens that we decided to get rid of all the lawns otherwise we would surely be neck-deep in cuttings by now.   If you have any other stuff to get rid of like old washing machines or big carpets the council charges £25 upwards to pick them up so is it any wonder that fly-tipping is rife around here. Oh and furniture that is stillhalfway decent you get charged to take it away and then an hour later it is on sale outside the tip offices!

On that topic I think I surely must get the award for the strangest, not to mention most morbid item that was fly-tipped locally.  I was walking my dog and the shortcut to the woods takes you through the local British Legion carpark which has become quite a favoured depositary of junk recently.  My dog has the annoying habit of watering every tree, twig or blade of grass, so he sees this massive pile of stuff that he simply had to autograph and proceeds to rummage about amongst the things.   He then decides that this particular wooden box would be suitable and was just about to "christen" it when I realised there was something unusual about it, dragged him off and discovered to my utter horror that it was a box containing someone's recently departed Granny!   Some reprobate had fly-tipped their Gran amidst piles of garden rubbish, paint cans, broken furniture and smashed pots.  Unbelieveable.

Anyway I could not leave the old girl there so I took the box up to the local church where I left it with the vicar who was disgusted at how someone had treated their old gran with such irreverence in dumping her like that.  I later heard that the vicar traced the family through the undertaker's label on the box and they feigned ignorance as to how this had happenned - how they could not notice Gran's box was missing I don't know - but the vicar scatterred the ashes in the churchyard so that the old lady would not end up being fly-tipped again.   What a sad indictment of society.

 

[Gastines]

Perhaps I should try and buy the licence to run our tip? Surely you don't need qualifications? My last visit to Bournemouth Tip at Millhams, I was amazed to see a trailer come in with a huge oak table on it and a ROSEWOOD chiffonier. Helpfully unloaded by the tip staff into their shop I asked how much they were asking? " Make an offer" I offered £500.oo. True and not made up. After a phone call to the tip boss the response was" Make it £700.oo and their yours" As he hadn't even seen the items I thought perhaps he might be being a bit greedy. However, he is a Millionaire and doing very nicely and I am off to dig some spuds out of the garden.

 I might add that I used to buy hundreds of leaded glass windows from the tip for 50p each untill the penny dropped.As one door closes, another shuts.

Regards.

[Framboise]

Yes Gastines, our friend is doing very nicely out of his wombling licence thanks.   He rakes in a fortune in scrap metals, textiles (including things like jeans with mastic on them!) but especially old furniture & nick nacks that he cleans up and sells to various antique dealers around the area.  He also sells at a very big car boot sale where he has people literally fighting each other to buy old tvs and white goods which they then export back to Nigeria by the container-load.   That old saying "Where theres muck, theres brass...." is certainly true because its not a job people would actually relish the idea of, yet there is a fortune to be made from it if you don't mind getting your hands a bit mucky.

Of course the council has cottoned on to this line now thus have tripled the price for the licence to go - a - wombling and he has been outbid by some huge corportion that is moving the tip to a smaller site in a less prosperous area, flattenning the offices etc and is going to build a luxury housing development instead.  Our friend's nice little earner is all but over now but he has virtually paid off his mortgage on the proceeds of what other folk have slung out in the bins,so he is not complaining.

[Gastines]

Sorry couldn't resist adding the following after the mention of the Pig Bin...

On another forum,no names mentioned, I advertised a job available as a lorry driver for the local pig farm.   To collect pig food bins from local hotels/restaurants,lorry driver required,very early start but finish by 10.am.  Wages minimum but you can eat as much as you like!!  I did add that as it was Christmas it was a Christmas cracker joke but I had 7 applications for the job and some rude comments after.

Back to recycling, When I was with some foster parents they had 2 older daughters and the problem with this was some of the odd hand-me downs I got. Once,when it was snowing instead of wearing my old plimmies to school, I was given a pair of PINK wellies to wear!!  I was so embarrased that I used to hide my plimmies in a hedge around the corner from the house and change on the way to and back from school. On returning back to my home I was pleased I had brothers.

Regards.

[Framboise]

Pink wellies???   I'm sure that you could sue the Social Services lot for your horror at being forced  to wear such items.  It may have turned your head, much less infringed your basic European Human Rights.  Ring Cherie right now!

As to hand-me-downs, I was lucky 'cos I am the eldest of three but imagine how embarrassed my brother would have been inheriting those red hot pants, circa 1970's haha!    We wondered why he turned out so strange................

[Megan le Fey]

[quote user="Just Katie "]Nobody has answered my bottle of bleach question yet.  Or didnt you use bleach in the olden days?[/quote]

Katie, I remember very well indeed what bottles bleach came in.  It came in green glass bottles about the size and shape of a bottle of Bordeaux.  Sixty years ago, when even I was very young,  my mother used to use a little paraffin to light the fire and she used to get it in an empty bleach bottle.  One day she asked my younger sister to go to the shop and get some paraffin,  my sister refused so my mother told me (the biddable one) to get it.  I was in a roaring temper at the unfairness[6] of it  and, bottle in hand by the neck, I ran down the hill but on the way I tripped and fell.  The bottle smashed and with the broken neck still in my hand and twisted under me I cut open my palm and, worse, my wrist and that big vein.  There was more blood than even when my dad killed a pig and I still have the stiched up scars.   So,  I can absolutely guarantee that bleach came in green glass bottles "in the olden days".