Recycling

Recycling

Millions of garbage bins are emptied every day around the world. Why do we throw so much away? Can’t some of it be used again? What’s rubbish to one person might be something useful to another person.

Recycling is popular today - clothes, glass, paper, all kinds of things can be recycled. And sometimes recycling can have unexpected effects, as Judith discovers…

Judith stood in front of the kitchen window, washing last night’s dishes, just as she did every morning. Each day her feet made a deeper mark on the worn floor. Through the thin curtain on the window, she saw that it was a grey winter morning. But no snow had fallen. In the yard there were just a few piles of old snow, which had hardened into dull white ice.

The window looked white round the edges. She would need her coat when she took the garbage down to the bins later. Her breath would make an icy fog, and her toes would feel the bite of winter inside her thin wool slippers.

She shivered, and let her hands stay in the warm dishwater, rubbing the dinner plate slowly with the cloth, spending longer than necessary on the water glass, and washing the knife and fork again and again.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something moving outside, at the far end of the garden. It was a man, wearing a long brown coat and a black baseball cap. His face was hidden behind a thick brown beard.

Judith stood completely still. Was he looking for things to steal? An unlocked window to climb through?

The man lifted the lid of one of her garbage bins and looked inside, then did the same to the second bin. From the third, he pulled out an old radio Judith had thrown away, and put it inside a black leather suitcase he was carrying. The case was a nice piece of luggage, perhaps even by a well-known designer, Judith thought. She was really surprised to see what valuable things people throw away. After putting the lid back on the bin, the man walked unhurriedly away.

Judith felt a little uncomfortable at seeing a vagrant in her tidy, well-organized neighbourhood, but he wasn’t bothering anyone. In a way, she told herself, he was being very helpful to people, by recycling things they no longer wanted. He was doing a useful job.

The next morning, she looked in her closet and found the shoebox full of neckties that Richard had left behind. She supposed the reason he hadn’t taken them was that they were presents from her. All of them were silk, and very expensive. Putting on her coat, which was hanging near the back door, she went into the garden, taking small steps in her loose-fitting slippers. She placed the box of ties on one of the garbage bins.

She returned to the kitchen and washed the dishes from the night before, watching for the vagrant through the thin curtain. He appeared, carrying his black suitcase. When he put the box of ties into his bag, she felt a sense of relief, like a gentle rain falling in the back of her mind.

The next day, Judith went out to the garbage bins again, and put into one of them a small painting. Richard had given it to her after twenty years of marriage, on the date of their wedding.

The following morning, she put out their wedding photo, in its silver frame.

Finally, she placed her wedding ring in a small box and left it in a bin. She didn’t see the man that morning, but in the evening she checked the garbage bin and saw that the ring was gone. She let out a long slow breath, and the frown that she had worn for months disappeared.

The man’s suitcase was sitting on top of one of the bins. It was a fine-looking leather bag. He didn’t need it any more, she supposed. After selling her ring and the other things she’d left, he would eat well for a while.

A light snow began to fall, giving the back garden and the suitcase a soft white covering. She slid her fingers through the handle of the bag, and carried it into the house.