Fresh Material

It was just a coincidence that Adelaide endured a spring storm with its strongest gusts during the morning of my neighbourhood's bin day. I woke up yesterday to a road of toppled wheelie bins. Many loose items for recycling were flapping, skidding and cartwheeling down the streets.

I've walked the dog four times since then, and even this afternoon some of the bins were still lying down, lids open, spreading their insides to the world. Block after block the gutters are littered with plastics and metals. Paper and cardboard has been pulped by the rain and passing cars.

What have I learnt from it all? After walking a square kilometre I now know that all my neighbours are much more similar to me than I ever realised. On the surface we're different demographics, races, cultures. Yet we all shop at the same supermarkets, we all get the same catalogues. We all throw our dockets and envelopes in the recycling even though they contain vaguely identifying information on them. Strawberries are definitely in season. We eat the same cereals and crackers and canned vegetables... Either that or the wind carried my recycling a lot further than I thought possible.

There are a couple of outliers, like the ramshackle house two streets over with a recycling bin filled to the brim with nothing but cask wine boxes. And one of my neighbours had an LPG gas cylinder in their recycling bin. Better there than in the potentially-compacted trash I suppose...