Top of the Tip

It's nearly Spring. And you know what time that is? That's right, time for Spring cleaning. And in describing what we did today, the term 'cleaning' is hardly sufficient.

As you can see, we cleaned out so much rubbish from our house and yard that we had to stack it on the trailer (an exercise in itself) and take it to the tip.

The tip, I have decided, is one of the strangest places in the world. It's like a wasteland hidden within the sprawl of our outer suburbs. A huge dirt mountain obscures your view of the horizon, and a multitude of all kinds of birds circle overhead in search of something to eat (I don't want to know what). The crows, ibis and seagulls made me curious as to what lay beyond the mound that loomed in front of us, as we waited while the men at the recycling shed salvaged parts of our load.

When we finally ascended to the top of the hill, what I expected to be a glorious view turned out to be yet another series of dirt mounds, being shovelled around by a front-end loader. When I got out of the car, the all-too-familiar smell of copious amounts of rubbish bought back memories of my previous visit to the tip many years ago.

As we left, and I watched the men working tirelessly at sorting heavy pieces of wood and metal for recycling, I wondered what it would be like to be a 'garbo'. How would you answer when people asked what you do for a living? Since for most people garbo carries very little prestige, the best way one could answer would be "I work in the management and environmentally sound disposal of unwanted materials".