Every year or so the local council does an ‘Inorganic Collection’. This basically means that all the stuff that you have that isn’t recyclable is placed out on the front verge for the council to collect and take away. It means that people with no morals won’t dump it illegally somewhere else, which is nice.

This year Inorganic week came about when we were moving things around, which meant that all the things we would have ignored till next year could go out on the front lawn. And oh all the stuff that went out!

There was all the usual crap, but a bunch of cute stuff too: a pair of red kid sized chairs, Some four foot tall wooden tulips, a plastic fish bowl, a glitter-y magic wand. Three years worth of pirated movies burned to CD (yeah, CD! I know! Old school . . .), and a hair straightener (that works. But we had three and decided that we didn’t need it).

There were dressers, and broken lamps and about twenty office folders, and tacky cushions from the 90s (think heart shaped, covered in purple and glitter fur) and just a ridiculous amount of stuff.

I started to set up an outside living room – we had more than enough stuff, but I didn’t quite have enough time.

Not because of the collection people, but because of the Scavengers! They are the best part about Inorganic Week, I think. The people that drive slowly up and down the street in their giant trucks or station wagons with trailers, watching other scavengers, eyeing up the piles of possible treasure, trying to spot something worth saving.

There was one gentleman, who would wait in his car while we were putting out stuff, and the second we were up the drive was out there looking through it, with a giant giant grin on his face! I was pretty stoked, actually. He stayed with our pile for ages.

It delights me that these people come and rescue bits and pieces from a future at the tip! Alot of is good stuff, it was just that we’d outgrown it or didn’t think it was worth selling. So I was stoked to see a guy with three kids take away the little red chairs, and a lady with two girls, noses pressed to the window take away my wooden tulips. And even the broken stuff, I had a great conversation with a metal smith who was collecting old bits of metal to make sculpture with. And with a girl who was collectioning random appliances (she left behind all the power cords, though. Safety first, I think).

I spent the afternoon on the porch, watching the scavengers come and go. Watching them pick through our stuff and find something they could use. In the half hour that I was out there no fewer than 12 people came and had a look at our stuff. At first I wondered if I should go down to the verge and try convince them to take bits and pieces, share the history behind the things we had thrown out.

But alas, the sun disappeared before I could make my mind up, and the scavengers disappeared with it. When I came back from work yesterday, the pile was much smaller. I guess they didn’t need much convincing.

Ah, Inorganic Week. I wish throwing out rubbish was always this brilliant. :)