A Bug's Life

Monday is the day our recycling gets collected from the kerbside. A couple of hours ago, I heard the sound of bottles being sorted. I assumed that this happened at the van: it has section for different recyclable materials (paper, glass of three colours, cans) and rails along the side that the recycling crates can be hung from. I've seen them hook the crates up, and pick through the contents going "green, clear, green, brown" and popping everything into the appropriate slot.

I went outside to collect our crates, but to my surprise they were still full! It seems that there is a new process, whereby someone gathers several crates together (they often clump naturally at the ends of blocks of flats - we're not a long street of detatched houses) and pre-sorts the contents so one crate is full of green glass, one of clear, 2-3 of paper etc. Then when the van comes round they just need to heave each crate in.

This must save the van a lot of time, and stop a lot of traffic blockage as it will progress through the narrow streets so much more quickly. It also explains why we often retrieve our crate to find odd bits in that weren't ours, or strange dribbles.