How would you feel if I gathered up the waste created by my household or business and dumped it in your yard?
Pretty peeved, I can only imagine! Why some people think they can do this mystifies me.
Two and a half years ago we installed glass and paper recycling bins at The Ballito Business Centre in Ballito Drive in aid of The Orphan Fund. Not only was this a community service combating litter and pollution, but The Orphan Fund also received a little cash back for all the paper collected.
But now the recycling station is being so badly abused by a few people that we may have to remove it.
They steal up under the cover of darkness and leave bags and bags of rubbish piled up high behind the recycling bins.
The signage is clear: no dumping. If it doesn’t fit into the recycling bin then we cannot accept it.
Volunteers have to be found to sort through the rubbish and take it to Dolphin Coast Waste. What a nightmare!
I thank Dolphin Coast Waste, who have tried their best to help keep the area clear, and other members of the body corporate who have also pitched in, but it has proven a losing battle.
I imagine these dumpers are ordinary citizens who look just like you and me. We might chat with them politely in the grocery aisle never knowing.
One man was busted dumping his garbage bag next to the recycling bin this week. “Oh” he said, completely oblivious to having done anything wrong, “I missed the garbage truck at my house”.
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I am struck by how many things are not nearly as bad as we expect them to be.
I am in the process of gently weaning Ruben (he’s now two and four months) from breast milk.
It’s slow going because Mr Ruben is very keen on his “Mik” as he calls it.
One step I have been dreading was to stop nursing him to sleep at night. About two months ago I told him if he woke in the night that “Mommy’s milk is sleeping” and offered him water instead.
He accepted this with surprisingly little fuss. But since then I have been stealing myself up to putting “the ladies” to bed before Ruben so that he would be able to go to sleep without me.
I imagined screaming, tears and epic tantrums long into the night. I felt ill with guilt at the thought.
Two nights ago I nursed him before story time and we (me very nervously) said “good night” to Mommy’s milk. When it came to bedtime he cried for a few minutes and then accepted his new reality, snuggled into my chest and went to sleep.
No one was more surprised and relieved than me. Tonight we had a bit of a power struggle but mainly because he didn’t want to go to bed and then had just discovered how to climb out of his cot (a moment every parent dreads). But within ten minutes he was once again asleep in my arms.
To think that I wasted so much mental energy worrying over this. A valuable lesson I hope to carry into the new year.
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