"You know a lot of things have gone wrong for you when the guy at the municipal dump knows your name. It basically means you're bereaved or getting divorced because if you're just a regular, organised person who goes to the dump a lot, you're in and out of there like a ghost. So anyway, I wouldn't call it a friendship, between me and the guy in the recyclable items aisle; it's more of a Tom and Jerry thing."
"I try to leave stuff where it might find a new home, and he tries to get me to put it in landfill. I say, But sir, it's a brand new commode, there are people who'd bite your hand off for one of these, and he says, Give it back to the NHS, and I say, Do you think I haven't tried that?."
Visits to the municipal dump become a site of human encounters, negotiation, and small power struggles over discarded goods. A regular patron recognizes familiar faces, suggesting bereavement or life upheaval rather than casual thriftiness. Exchanges revolve around salvaging usable items, with staff enforcing site rules and sometimes encouraging disposal. Humor and mild antagonism offset practical decisions about recycling versus landfill. Reliably useful older technologies and household items reappear, often rendered unusable by lost documentation or unfamiliarity. Observing other people's discarded belongings provokes judgment and amusement, while the dump functions as a place where necessity, nostalgia, and rules intersect.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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