I've always believed one person's trash is another person's treasure. That's one of the reasons I used to look forward to the inorganic rubbish collections so much.

I half-filled my garage with great stuff people had just left at the side of the road. I had a barbecue which would definitely be fix-uppable. A washing machine turned out not to be so useful, so I put it out next time around and someone else a bit like me took it away. Sofas - more than one - which were great for the dog. Washing baskets which were only a little bit broken.

One year I found a really interesting collection of books, obscure stuff about weird religions and witchcraft and exorcisms. Really useful buckets, bits of old hose, a stereo which actually worked and went in the workshop. And loads of wood. Literally, tons of it, enough to build a fabulous play house for the girls. It was as good as a bach. I put another couch off the inorganic in there too.

Now I know the inorganic did make the streets a bit untidy for a time, and some of my neighbours used to grumble about all the combi vans cruising up and down the street picking through the piles of stuff on the berm. But the inorganic was recycling at its simplest. I don't need this anymore, please take it. After a week or so the big truck would come and pick up what was left.

Sadly, there's no more inorganic.  Not in the way it used to be - now you have to book ahead, and they limit how much you can leave out and they pick and choose what they take. The price of taking a trailer load to the dump is now so high - it was 60 or 70 bucks last time - so guess what? People are dumping their garbage at the side of the road, and a new industry has sprung up.

Rubbish removal people. A van turns up and you give them some cash, off goes the garbage and guess what. It ends up dumped on someone else's front yard or by the road somewhere or in the bush. Have a look at the story from the NZ Herald this morning and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Rogue collectors dumping rubbish. This is becoming a major problem. When the country is full of tourists coming to enjoy our clean and green environment, we've got piles of crap at the side of the road. It's bloody embarrassing.

And it's costing councils huge amounts of money - in Auckland they reckon it's a million dollars to clean up the trash the Council used to take away. The point I'm trying to make here is this is a problem of the Council's own making. By trying to save money stopping the inorganic collections, all they've done is move the problem, and probably make it more dangerous, and more expensive to clean up.

Am I right about this? Getting rid of rubbish is much too expensive. And the joy of rescuing stuff from the inorganic has been stolen from us.