Recycling

To Government and councillors

Brought up in the fifties

No need to separate tins

Sort newspapers and cardboard

In to multi-coloured bins.

We used the daily paper

Beneath the carpet on the floor

For the lighting of the fire

Or behind the toilet door.

We would give them to the chip shop

To wrap the chips up tight

If we some string and canes

We would build ourselves a kite.

We had no plastic bottles

No bags of polythene

We did as we thought right

Not just because it was green.

All bottles were returned

To the pop man or local inn

Or recycled by the milkman

Not thrown into a bin

Mothers went out shopping

Almost every day

Food was always fresh

None was thrown away.

The main meal of the week

Was eaten on a Sunday

Any food left over

Was re-heated on the Monday

Clothes made into rugs

If they couldn’t be repaired

Not new clothes every year

That would be absurd.

No sell by dates, no best before

No foodstuffs packed with ‘E’s’

All food was eaten while still fresh

We had no place to freeze.

Old shoes went on the fire

To keep the family warm

Peelings kept for animals

Went to the local farm.

We were conscientious

And acted with sobriety

As we were not brought up

In a throw away society