… at the local recycling depot. So I suppose it’s not dumping, exactly. We cleaned out the garage yesterday - which involved moving everything out on to the grass, sweeping and washing the floor, waiting for it to dry, and then putting everything back - so there are a few things for Freecycling, and I took a fluorescent light tube, some cardboard, and a stack of empty and almost-empty paint pots down to the depot. Yay me.

I’m a good recycler, actually. We have a weekly bin collection, but one week is the blue bin for recyclables (card, paper, plastics, tins - glass has to go to the bottle bank at the nearest supermarket) and the other is the black bin for general waste. As much as possible goes into the blue bin, and all compostable waste goes into the compost bin at the back of the garden, including some paper and card as ‘browns’ to round out all the grass clipping ‘greens’ that go in. I try and throw away as little as possible, though I still get embarrassed sometimes by how much crap does get thrown away.

I can’t remember the last time I took a plastic carrier bag from a shop though. I always carry big reusable carriers, plus a fold-up fabric one in my handbag. (Ugh. Handbag. I always hate to think of myself as someone who carries a handbag as opposed to a general purpose rucksack or something, but alas - even as big and squashy and useful and denim as my current bag is, it definitely fits into the ‘handbag’ category.) Even so, we have a HUGE bag full of carrier bags hiding in the under-stairs cupboard. They do come in handy sometimes.