This past week, we have had quite a few things delivered, which means quite a lot of packaging to dispose of, mainly cardboard. No problem. Here in Wrexham county we have a large, blue bag for paper and ordinary cardboard and the corrugated stuff goes in the green bin; don't ask me why, I don't really care as long as it's all recycled.
As there was rather a lot of cardboard, I hoped that the poor, overworked binmen - sorry, refuse collectors - would not find it too traumatic to collect it this week.
Round one was the emptying of the green bin. Done.
Round two - the emptying of the green box (wine bottles and, er, wine bottles) plus the blue bag. I noticed from the window that the blue bag had been placed on top of the empty box but still retained a suspiciously firm outline, so I hopped outside to investigate. A large, flattened cardboard box was still in there, plus two toilet roll centres, but I'm prepared to overlook those, so I took the bag over to one of the men who was busy sorting and emptying the neighbour's green box.
"Excuse me," I said politely, "you have left this in my bag," holding out the flattened box for his close inspection.
"We don't take cardboard," he said, without looking at me. (Oh shucks, I must have turned into the invisible woman again!)
"Well, it says on this bag that you do," I said, gearing up for battle.
The cardboard box was grabbed out of my hand and stuffed into the section of the vehicle reserved for and stuffed with - yes, you've guessed it - CARDBOARD!!
