Modern dumps are rubbish

You've got to go down the dump with all that stuff in the garden," ordered Mrs Newish Man on Monday morning.

"What stuff? The cat?" I asked.

"No! All those leaves and branches I cut down yesterday."

And there was me thinking Mother Nature took care of recycling that sort of stuff.

"Can't we just burn it?" I asked.

But, apparently, even massive, toxic, backyard fires are considered bad news these days. So I loaded up the car and headed down to the 'Council Refuse and Recycling Plant.' It's the same place I used to visit with my mum when I was a kid, only much neater. Back then it was one giant mound of generic crap that emitted an aroma so deadly it would make us gag within a mile's radius. These days it's smart, organised and surprisingly odourless. There's a separate section for more or less any kind of rubbish you care to imagine: glass, plastic, paper, tea-bags, hat-stands, unwanted Coldplay CDs, dead pigeons. It's almost like walking into a smartly appointed branch of Gap. Gone are the scary tattooed staff who looked as if they slept, ate and fornicated inside the black belly of the rubbish mountain. Now there are refuse professionals dressed in spanking clean uniforms who come and hassle you if you fail to separate your carrier bags properly. Getting rid of rubbish has always been boring but at least it used to feel a bit dangerous. Now it's just sterile and charmless. Still, that's progress I suppose. Next time I'll do it the old-fashioned way and just push all of our household waste into the canal in a stolen shopping trolley. ·