Recycling-People Think It Is New

Around 1948 or 1949 my father lived on a quiteimprovement on the rock hard stuff he had used
large council estate in west London. He was wasup to then. They were all pink, but you could find
still at primary school, of course.bits of white with odd words printed, where the
A couple of mates and he would get an old pramre-pulping process had not been as thorough as it
chassis, and go door to door in the blocks of flats,might have been. This was what was happening
asking for old newspapers and other waste paper.to our old newspapers. Still, better than being torn
Once the pram was loaded they would push itinto quarters and strung on a nail, I suppose, and
around a mile or so to a yard where they couldat least the paper was soft-ish.
sell the paper for a penny a pound, just slightlyForward a bit more, to the present day. Recycle,
more than a new penny a kilo today. The yardsay the experts. Don't consign your waste paper
would, of course, sell the waste paper on forto landfill sites. Recycling has become the thing of
recycling into packaging; cardboard boxes and thethe day. A new concept in saving and materials,
like. This was not long after World War 2, andespecially the rain forests, we are being told. Mind
everything salvageable was salvaged and reusedyou, the trees in the rain forests were not much
one way or another, and paper was still in shortgood for papermaking anyway, but never mind.
supply.The only problem is that this country now doesn't
Fast forward now, twenty five years or so, tohave the capacity to recycle the paper which is
the early seventies. He worked on Londonsaved, so most of it is exported thousands of
Underground. Their station had been supplied withmiles to become brand new paper again.
soft toilet rolls for the very first time. What anRecycling? People today think it's a new idea!