The first Thursday of the month is when glass is collected, where I live. And I guess that, after Christmas and New Year there was more than the usual amount of it. Anyway, lots of bottles and jars were left out on our doorsteps, most of them stacked neatly and safely in cardboard cartons.

But guess what...?

The garbage men, already eager to police us by sticking labels on plastic bags when the wrong colour is left out on the wrong day, are taking their jobs seriously, and doing what they are told to do. And only what they are told to do.

Glass means glass. So they pick up the cartons, carry them to their truck, and empty the contents into it. Then they throw the cartons into the street and drive off. 

Literally... they chuck the cartons any-old-where. Presumably they had been told that glass means glass, and they were collecting nothing else. Absolutely nothing else.

I followed the truck along three streets and watched it happen, every time. I was also following a trail of empty boxes.

It rained on Thursday. So the street where I live was, in places, soon ankle-deep in sodden cardboard (and in some cases with plastic bags blowing in the wind).

Now, cardboard is totally recyclable, as is glass. Maybe they can’t go into the recycling process together, but it would be amazingly easy to sort, one from the other, at the depot.

More to the point, what game is being played, here? The glass was packed and stacked neatly on doorsteps. After the truck left, the streets were a mess. In a way it would have been better if they had never come.

In future, I’d suggest, a better idea would be to put all glass in back bags (which are collected twice a week) and ignore the monthly collection.

The current system is quite simply... rubbish.

Civic pride? Malta? It would be laughable were it not so disgraceful.