If you are thinking that I am talking about dominant, bright or most popular colours I am not. Neither am I talking about rainbow colours in VIBGYOR. Red, yellow and green are the colours of the bins the council provides us for different types of rubbish or waste. I don’t have to remind you that the red bin is used for general rubbish, yellow for recycling and green for garden waste. While councils are generous with red and yellow bins, Fairfield council is miserly when it comes to the green bins. Not all homeowners have concrete floors in their backyard. Most of the homeowners have large or small areas to mow and trim which we are responsible enough to bag it, ready to dispense the waste. Even though the council has placed brochures in our mailboxes informing us where one could drive to dump the garden waste, imagine the number of trips one would have to make.
Being a tenant, this was an unnecessary responsibility. In the previous rented property, I had a large front yard and three sections of backyard to mow and trim and I ended up with 5 large self-standing garden bags each time. One could take a maximum of two bags to the dumpsite or collection point each trip, especially, if you’re the owner of a small car. One on the back seat and one in the boot of the car. I do not know whether you would regard the prospect of driving a car with creepy crawlies in a bag in your backseat an attractive option. The very thought of finding an earthworm, centipede or millipede or garden lizards, crickets and other insects crawling around in my vehicle and later to be distracted by these on me while driving stopped me from taking it to the collection point. Even though I was aware of the fine I would cop if caught with garden waste in the red bin, I had succeeded in dispensing the garden waste in this way a few times. Many a time, I left it standing until the garden waste dried and shrunk to small sized bags that could be easily burnt. However, the council was wary of people who set fire to things in their backyard or anywhere in the property and I could not muster up the courage to set fire to the dried garden waste stealthily like a few of my neighbours did.
When the tenancy agreement was terminated after two and a half years of tenancy in that property, $600 were deducted for cleaning the backyard from my rental bond and the agency returned the remaining as per tenancy and Fair-trading rules. I blame the council for this loss. I attempted to convince Fairfield council to provide me with a green bin both on phone and in writing and received a denial each time. If any thing a supply of green bins and once a month collection would only have increased employment opportunities for the needy and a clean suburb. I had lived in Ingleburn for ten years before I moved to Canley Heights and was accustomed to the luxury of green bins that without it, I felt deprived in certain ways. Wetherill Park is no different. To this date, I could not understand how Campbelltown council was permitted to provide its suburban residents with green bins and other councils were not. An unresolved enigmatic issue.
A Writer's Exposé 