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| Do you see that word LOVE graffitied on the window of the old Coop? |
Any shortcomings of communal bins and wheelie bins were vehemently denied by the many who claim to be experts in bin bags. You'd think they were plated in gold, they offered such solutions to us, the un-initiated and ignorant public.
Once I spoke to a man called Sean about my small black dustbin which he insisted I had to replace with a wheelie bin, so deep I can't reach the bottom. Neither can the bin men, who now leave my rubbish because contrary to what Sean says, they don't attach it to the lorry, they transfer my rubbish to another wheelie bin.
I can't imagine bending my whole body into my bin to grab a small, pungent bag of cat litter, which is all my household generates. But Sean was adamant. If I put my dustbin out my rubbish wouldn't be collected. He threatened me with a communal bin. And his threat was serious - being played out city wide.
Does it need to be like this? Banks of bin bags partying with traffic fumes on Brighton's second most polluted road, booming to the sounds of mobile speakers by night and angle-grinders by day. I loved my city once. I don't blame Sean, only as trenchant as his paymasters demanded. Next there'll be vans motoring around the streets at night depositing pizza boxes and last night's take-aways on corners, as landlords do with sofas when the students move out.
Is there a conversation here? But where do I go to talk about quality of life? Is there a place to imagine a different daily reality? Because the council has failed on traffic, on public transport, on housing, on noise, on recycling, on care of the young and the old.... It enables parking on pavements, skateboards and bikes on pavements, and now great mounds of rubbish. Where do I express my righteous anger? My sadness at the bureaucrats and the Seans.
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