A Bin Alley Redeemed

Apparently, my neighbour thought I was a vandal when she heard me rooting around in our gated bin alley. I don’t know if she was reassured that I was entirely sane when I popped out of a rubbish bin with a cheery smile to say ‘Hello! Just doing a little cleaning!’

When we moved here a year ago, there was an interesting view from my back gate. Looking right, I saw a beautiful work of redemption – my neighbours had swept the tarmac clean and planted a garden in rubber tires, storage boxes and filing cabinet drawers. Looking left, however, there was a mess of broken glass, rubbish, and mysteriously, used teabags that seemed to fall like mucky manna from the sky. ‘I’ll give this a quick clean,’ I thought, naively.

They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations (Isaiah 61:4)

It was not a task for the faint of heart. The gate was blockaded by abandoned bins which had become homes to thriving communities of creepy-crawlies. The tarmac had all the evidence of being very popular with the neighbourhood cats as a lavatory. Armed with heavy-duty rubber gloves and brandishing a hardy broom, I sorted through the gravel for old nails and dug up half-exposed razor blades and jagged bits of metal. My husband carted bags of stones and broken bricks to the tip. Slowly but surely, we reclaimed ground.

Of course, there were moments when my enthusiastic get-up-and-go spirit nearly got up and went. There was a ridiculous catch-22 where the recycling lorries wouldn’t empty the abandoned bins because they were full of general waste, and the general waste lorries refused to do it (despite a handwritten sign on each bin) because they were blue recycling bins. ‘Would dragging ten bins one by one to the recycling centre classify me as Disproportionately Overenthusiastic?’ I was musing as I happened, providentially, to bump into a city councillor who lives on our street. Within minutes, he had promised to call Bob to pick the bins up and then promptly disappeared again, like a bustling angel of hope.

And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’ Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the LORD; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it. (Ezekiel 36:35-36)

No longer is our back alley a disconsolate graveyard for bins. Decked from end to end with eighty-four metres of fluttering bunting, it is a beautiful and safe community space. Happy stick figures holding hands dance among words like ‘LOVE JOY PEACE’ on the fences where the children have carefully spelt their names out in chalk. The poppies are in bloom, the pumpkins are set on taking over the world, and we are hopeful for the honeydew melon patch in the old bathtub. We’ve spent many a happy afternoon out there, chatting as the kids ride their bikes and being served freshly baked ‘cakes’ from their mud kitchen.

And that’s only the beginning, for a back alley necessarily leads to back yards containing slides and paddling pools! Then of course there’s back doors, leading to welcoming homes - then on to the kitchen where biscuit dough is waiting to be shaped by little hands, baked, decorated and put into goody bags carried proudly out the front door to be distributed to everyone on the block! From our back alley to the world, may the Kingdom of a most generous King go forth.