Tuesday 1 October 2013

Confusion worse confounded *

* Milton, Paradise Lost, ii, line 996.

Our dustmen - sorry, refuse collectors (or operatives, as the sign on the back of the dustcarts states) call every week on Tuesday mornings.  The recycling team calls fortnightly, also on Tuesday mornings.  Residents are expected to put their wheelie bins (general rubbish) and/or recycling boxes (paper, metal, plastic in one; glass in another) on the pavement in front of the house before a specified time on the appropriate days, but not earlier than another specified time.  Which is all very well if (a) you are available to move the bins and boxes in the allotted time span and (b) have somewhere to put the bins/boxes at all other times and (c) are physically capable of moving said bins and boxes to the correct place.  As our drive is very steep uphill to the pavement, the Old Bat is incapable of moving the bin as required.  Because there was a time when I was away a lot, she made arrangements with the Council for the dustmen to collect the bin and boxes from where they are kept just outside the back gate.  And that system has worked well for a number of years.  In the main.  There have been occasional lapses when our regular crew have not done the round.

But all is about to change.

We received a communication yesterday, 30th September.  The letter told us that new rounds are to be introduced from 7th October and our collection days will change.  The accompanying leaflet gives details of our collection dates for 2013/14 and states that our recycling will be collected on Fridays, starting this coming Friday, 4th October - three days before the letter se changes come into effect.  Our refuse, it says, is collected every Wednesday (it's not - see above) and this will change to Mondays.

Could it be that the wrong leaflet was sent to us, or does the team under the Executive Director Environment, Development & Housing (in other words, the Cityclean people) not know what is happening?  Fortunately, it doesn't really matter to us - unless the new team forget to collect our rubbish - but it really could be a case for another quotation (tho' I don't know its provenance): "and chaos reigned supreme".

~~~~~

Here's another Brighton building that has seen various uses.

Photo: Tony Mould


This was opened in in about 1891 as a Congregational chapel. In 1920 the chapel was converted into the 370-seat King's Cliff Cinema, and sound was installed in 1930. In 1947 it became the Playhouse Repertory Theatre, but was taken over by Myles Byrne in 1949 as the Playhouse Cinema. In 1951 it became the Continental, specialising in foreign films but concentrating on pornographic films from the late 1960s until it closed in December 1986. In 1990-1 it was converted to houses.

3 comments:

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

Once upon a time we had a 30gal. garbage can (dustbin) that held everything.
Then someone said, "Let's recycle."
so the sent out three color coded milkcrates: one for newspaper, one for glass and plastic, and one for aluminum.
It was picked up weekly and only took up a little space.
But, then somebody determined garden waste had to be recycled as well.
So then everyone was sent a wheelie bin for each type of recycling... a freakin' 90 gal. monstrosity for each.
The one consolation is the glass, plastic, aluminum, and paper can all go into the same bin.
What hasn't been done is the creation of space to keep these monsters between pickups.
Some just leave them at the curb.
Nice neighborhoods look hideous now.

Buck said...

Ooooh... DON'T get me started on recycling. I lived in Beserkeley once upon a time (for a year) where they had at least SIX separate containers for recyclables. One for green glass, one for clear, one for brown, one for paper, one for aluminum, and one for compostables (organic kitchen garbage). That's not the worst part... which was this: there were recycling POLICE who could write tickets (and DID) for putting the wrong recyclable in the wrong container.

Big Brother lives.

Brighton Pensioner said...

Well, that stirred things up a bit . . .