Wasps and dumps

A bit funny, and a bit funny at the same time.

Anything that’s dumped (a mattress, clothing, an animal carcass, household waste, Jurgen Conings, whatever it is) will sooner or later attract pests: mice, rats, bugs, wasps, flies, creepy crawlies, the mayor, whatever. And, for that reason, dumps are situated far distant from people who pay tax and less far from people who don’t. However, regardless of how much tax you pay, you don’t want dumps so far away that it’s a day’s trek to get your waste to them. The people who are closest to a dump are the people who work there, and they have little choice, although they’re there to tell dumpers what they can’t dump and what they can and, in the former case, where to shove it and, in the latter case, where to shove it (out of their trailer, SUV or wheelbarrow, as the case may be).

I’m on first-name terms with the boys at my local dump, which is just up the road from the council offices (they don’t pay tax), and they regularly need to tell me where to shove it, my permitted “fractions” of waste, as they’re called.

Glass is smashing fun – big containers opposite each other, one for white, one for coloured, a sort of apartheid, but one that makes sense this time, and I stand in the middle flinging the appropriate glass in the appropriate container like I’m juggling Indian clubs. There are wasps in these containers too and, I asked them why they were so busy in the container and not pestering me as they usually do when I’m lounging on my patio with a pina colada, and they said, “Bzz, becauzzze what’s in the containerzzz is far more interesting than your puny little pina colada – bzzz”. 

Now, the thing is, the council is concerned that our council workers might get stung, other than in their pay packets, that is, but, really, it’s not too bad because, as the wasp said to me, jam is tastier to them than bread is to a council worker. Or just as tasty, at least.

However, AND THIS IS THE POINT (down here in case you’re getting bored), they tell me to switch off the tap when I brush my teeth and put a brick in my toilet cistern but the council also tell me to wash my rubbish before I throw it away, which takes water and detergent, which are, I’ve heard, bad for the environment and use water to wash something that is going into a container where there are wasps but in which the wasps actually have plenty else to keep them occupied (I never saw my council workers drinking pina coladas, although they do lounge now and again).

So, isn’t this odd? Or, did no one else think about that? The council, for instance?