This morning after I picked up the chariot from the menders I decided to dispose of the ugliest ever Christmas tree holder. With the main family stakeholders away I popped into our local recycling centre (funny how everyone we know still calls it the “tip”.)

The build up to this has taken many years. Can anyone really object to a Christmas tree holder ugly or otherwise – you don’t see it except for when you erect and dispose of the tree? Leaving aside whether it is green, the nonsense of having a dead tree in your house for two or three weeks and then clearing up pine needles for 3 months afterwards, there is the prickly question of storing the ugly thing. A decade of experience of compact living and we never got to grips with how and where to store the damn thing which would take a disproportionate amount of space relative to it's size and invariably get tangled up with just about anything within a yard of it. It had to go!

With no one around at the Recycling Centre, I placed it in the general bin within easy reach of the next "customer", so they might pick it up – who knows – they might love ugly things? Oh, and what’s that? A load of CDs. It’s all all crap. Manic Street Preachers? Maybe my daughter would like that? I walk back and mount my chariot.

Then a rather good looking young man in regimental recycling centre uniform approaches me and starts to give me what sounds like a verbal warning. Rather eloquently he tells me that I am not permitted to take things out of the bins. I am thinking to myself maybe that is not a fair swap? Ugly Christmas tree holder for a Manic Street Preacher’s CD? I pipe up something feeble about the printers and variety of computer kit that I have donated to the big hole in the ground and he retorts that it’s like a shop and you wouldn’t think of taking something without asking? I am shamed. It’s like I have stolen something and should have crawled away, but he doesn’t up shut up. Once it’s it the bin, it is Council property. At which, I testily reply that in future I may be less generous and think twice before making further offerings to the great big hole in the ground.

As I make my way home, I think about “Council property”, re-using and recycling. What if I changed my mind and wanted my ugly Christmas tree holder back? Do they have a cooling off period? As a Council shareholder maybe I own the stuff in the bins too, but which stuff? Does the bureaucratisation of greening create more barriers and unintentended consequences than it resolves? Are informal exchanges like freecycle and marketised one’s like ebay better than bureaucratic ones? I think about Rigas’ comment yesterday evening about his experience in a Scottish Local Council, and his boss’ warning him that ideas have consequences!

Oh well at least I still got to keep the CD.