Recycling rage? Sometimes saving the planet is an expensive business

What a game this recycling is turning into.

Here I am, yours truly, a very keen recyclist (is that a word?) While I use lots of rubbish to make pieces of fine art, with all other rubbish I have to admit defeat and commit to the recycling pile in my cupboard. All the time I am hoping that someone else will make

something of them, not just burn them or bury them in landfill.

Lately though the situation has developed into a story, or even mini tragedy. My boxes were taken from outside my house. It has been quite amusing watching the changing of boxes since the system began and now the street is a charming patchwork mixture of green, black and random boxes for the storage of waiting recycling. When my boxes disappeared, I rang the council to get replacements.  I had to pay £6 each for the new boxes which ’would arrive in two or three weeks.’ Seemed a bit steep at the time having to pay again for these boxes so that someone could help themselves, but I coughed up.

Why should you have to pay to get your boxes replaced if they were stolen?

Guess what? Six weeks came and went and no boxes arrived, so I rang the correct department at the council. To get through I had to call three times and ended up waiting on the phone for 31 minutes in total. I hope you are counting! Meanwhile I dutifully took some of my rubbish to the tip and found some other receptacles for the rest.

Weeks later, still no recycling boxes. Saving the planet is an expensive business

I have since rang twice more to be told that the boxes had been delivered (they hadn’t) and that I would have to register a complaint. So I got given another reference number and a number to call to complain. By this time, when I called the complaints number, they

had all gone home. Try again tomorrow, and then the next day. Are you still counting?

Meanwhile my erstwhile keen desire to recycle has worn a little thin. But I am not giving up. How much more has it cost me beyond my first rather grudging payment of £18?

Has anyone else had their boxes stolen, or had to cough up for the boxes?