Truly, is this recycling?

Look, honestly, there are people living here who seem to think putting empty containers back into the fridge is some form of recycling.

Any day of the week you can idly open our fridge and think it full of food and drink.

But open that door in the hope of finding a snack or putting a meal together and it is something else again.

Last night there were two empty butter containers, an empty cheese wrapper folded neatly, a rinsed out juice container, an empty egg carton and a packet that had once contained shaved ham.

As always everything was neatly placed, empty, back on the shelf where it had lived, Now why, you ask? I know not why, but have long lived with this aberrant behaviour, which first became apparent when recycling became the order of the day and people were both full of fervour for the project and full of feverish debate as to which items were recyclable and which not so.

The debates continue still as family members from other places have different ideas and it seems one solution is to pop everything back from whence it came until the fridge is cleared out and a new shopping list activated.

But I tell you, there are few disappointments greater than the empty box which once held chocolates, or the dry bottle no longer worth the picking up or the once full fruit bowl holding now a browning apple core.

You see you don’t care so much about what is missing if there is no reminder.

But seeing the emptiness of the container brings the memory of what it once held, quite poignant that feeling at times.

Himself is no stranger to the empty box in the fridge or the empty Weetbix container to the pantry shelf.

He is quite pleased with putting things back where they came from.

Me? I feel for the hungry forager as empty packets mock her attempts to build a meal even enjoy a snack for empty biscuit packets are part of this drill of putting things away, even if, clearly, they are not worth — empty.

I think recycling is blamed for a lot of misunderstandings. This is one.