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