What's wrong with Portsmouth? Why won't they empty my bin? | Matt Mohan-Hickson

But perhaps the strangest thing about living in Portsmouth is the fact that it is the only place where they refuse to take the recycling bin for weeks and weeks on end.

I want to be green and do my part to help fight climate change.

And recycling is one of the easiest ways to be environmentally friendly, plus it just makes sense, why should we let so much go to waste when it can be reused?

Yet here in Portsmouth this is proving to be a bigger ask than you would expect.

Before moving to the south coast, wherever I have lived before, when bin day came around it was a simple task, you took the recycling bin out and voila it was emptied.

But after almost three years living in Portsmouth, I have been trapped in a seemingly never-ending battle to get our recycling bin taken.

Regularly six-eight weeks will go by and the bin will be rejected at every opportunity. Despite taking the time to make sure there are no non-recyclable items, I go out to check and discover the bin was simply not taken and emptied.

Living in a house of up to nine people, it does not take long for our recycling bin to get full to the brim. So the two-week gap between recycling collections is about the length of time it takes for our bin to fill up. This means that any time it is rejected it is a bit of a nightmare. The bin is still full but we still have plenty of items ready for recycling and something has to give.

This means that items that should be recycled end up in the normal waste bins. Instead of being able to do our bit for the environment, we are adding to the problem.

Currently it has been six weeks since our recycling bin was last emptied, I think the longest we have gone is two months.

It is not like we are pouring litres of food on the top of our green bin, or packing it with glass. We are simply trying to recycle plastic bottles, empty cereal boxes, things like that. What are we supposed to do to get our bin taken?

Warm summer nights in pub gardens seem possible again

Sequels always seem poorer in quality, with a few notable exceptions – the modern Planet of the Apes trilogy and Lord of the Rings.

So it’s no surprise the third national lockdown has been the worst. I’m exhausted, constantly tired and low in energy.

It is probably the fatigue from having done this twice before, combined with the grim winter weather.

Time has merged and it’s practically impossible to tell what hour it is, let alone what day or week. Perhaps I’m also feeling this way because we can see the end in sight, the vaccine roll-out has been a success and warm summer nights in a pub garden seem like a possibility again. Instead, I’m stuck inside and it’s raining again.

Let’s not rush to reopen and repeat mistakes of the past

I’m as excited as anyone about things returning to normal. To be able to travel back north and see friends I have missed for more than a year. Or simply just to be able to walk around HMV and look through the DVDs. Or to waste an hour looking at books in Waterstones.

But we can’t jump the gun this time.

If we open too quickly, as some Tory MPs want, we run the risk of lockdown again.

Surely it’s better for businesses and society if we are cautious for a couple of months and then never have to lock down again, instead of rushing into reopening shops, pubs and restaurants only to have them shut down.

In this situation it is far better to be the tortoise than the hare.