Spanners in the works

Now that we are allowed to take five 20-litre bags of DIY rubbish to the Recycling Centre every week without paying, I cycled two bike-trailer loads of rubbish I've dug out of my garden there this morning, as I have every Wednesday for the last 8 weeks. Each week, I see people chucking wood that I would use to make things, furniture that is better than mine and, in the rubble skip, china that a charity shop would be grateful for.

Meanwhile, I spend time at home sifting through items of mine that I don't want any more and advertising them on Freegle to see whether they are of any use to anyone else. It takes time to message and arrange collection times. Over the last few weeks I've given away lots of stationery (there's still some left, so stake your claim) and have started on the tools I no longer use. But I do wonder whether it is all just a drop of micro-plastic in the ocean, especially when there is a fiasco like today's.

Last week Brian asked for the set of Whitworth spanners I bought 47 years ago and haven't used for 43. He said he'd collect yesterday. He didn't, and they were still under my bike shelter, wrapped against the rain and labelled for him, when I got back from the Recycling Centre this morning, half an hour before someone was delivering to me something that I had asked for. Which she did, and I was very grateful.

Then Brian rang my bell because he'd arrived and the Whitworth spanners weren't where I'd said they'd be. I was flummoxed and very apologetic. After he'd left empty handed, it occurred to me that Mike, who was supposed to be ringing the bell for some AF spanners and some brass doorknobs, might have picked them up in error. I messaged him. Yes he had. It took 10 messages to and fro to arrange for him to bring them back - and for him to tell me that he didn't want the other items he'd asked for because his partner had just told him she already had those things.

Now I need to spend time on more messaging with Brian so he can have what he asked for, then one or other of us is going to have to travel to a rendezvous. And I need to re-advertise the items Mike has changed his mind about.

Or maybe I just need to play my part in the throw-away economy and chuck the whole lot in the bin. Honestly, what difference is it going to make?