Recycling was better in the fifties

Replaced by wheelie bins, plastic bags, charity shops, and beach detritus

Play equipment for Hide and Seek and Drumming

The ubiquitous brown paper bag

3d back on these

A state-run service that worked

Bin Collection day

Rag and Bone Man

Electric-powered and reliable in the 1950s

As the crescendo of instructions to recycle, stop buying plastic bags, buy a reusable coffee mug, drive less, and walk more steps, along with other environmentally sound advice that hits us from the media and ethical zealots, I can't help but become a little cynical. Most of these things I have tried to observe since growing up in the 1950s, when the lifestyle was far more sustainable than it is today. It has not been helped by the explosion of packaging, throw away products, two for one deals, the demise of brown paper bags, unnecessary use of the car for short trips, and the emergence of supermarkets and retail parks with massive car parks and their vast buying power that has led to the explosion of imported foodstuffs.

As a young child, I lived with my parents and grandparents in a two-bedroom terraced house. Things worked pretty well, and waste was minimised by good local services.

• Milk came in an electric milk cart, and the bottles were recycled. 
• Lemonade bottles had a 3d deposit and were returned to the local shop to be refilled at the nearby factory owned by the family of a girl in my class. 
• Wet fish arrived from Fleetwood mid-morning; it was wrapped in paper, as were fish and chips from the chip shop at the top of the street. 
• Fruit and vegetables came from the local market and were mainly sourced from the market gardens, whilst milk, cheese, and butter came from local dairy farms. The market was a ten-minute bus ride away on a service that ran every five minutes. 
• The bin collection was once a week and primarily consisted of ash from the fire and the odd tin. 
• There were regular horse-drawn rag and bone collections for any old iron and most other things. 
• All our transport was by bus or a tandem. 
• Heating was by an open fire burning coal or coke. My father worked at the local gas works, and he converted the fires to burn coke, a smokeless fuel that gave out more heat.
• Hot water was provided by an Ascot geyser and a cooker by gas from the local town gasworks. 
• The post arrived at 7:15am before grandad went to work; there were two deliveries a day, including bank holidays.
• A local evening paper was delivered at 5:00pm, just before grandad arrived home from the mill. It had the cricket scores from the afternoon session up to the 4:15pm tea break. 
• Bread was baked or bought from the local bakery at the top of the street. 
• All meals were cooked, and all cakes or puddings were homemade
• Shopping was brought home in a straw basket that had a lifespan of several years.
• Clothes were darned, shoes resoled, and appliances repaired.
• Holidays were either day trips by bus to Morecambe or a few days in Scarborough with Yorkshire relatives 
• There was only one TV in a street of 20 houses, it was ours, but we had won it in a competition. At the coronation, cup final and state funerals, most of the street would squeeze into the parlour to watch.

The contrast could not be greater today.

• Milk is bought in supermarkets in large plastic containers
• Lemonade or fizzy drinks come in cans or plastic bottles, not that I ever buy them or bottled water.
• Fish comes from the frozen food section of supermarkets or occasionally from the mobile wet fish van
• Fruit and vegetables are bought at the supermarket a half-hour drive away, often wrapped in plastic containers or bags
• We have 4 large wheelie bins, all three times as large as the original bin. They go out every two weeks. One for plastics, one for paper, one for garden waste, one for general waste, and there is a box for glass. I calculate that the volume of the receptacles is a seven-fold increase on what happened before the 1980s.
• Any old iron or broken electrical goods have to be taken to a recycling depot 10 miles away. There is no provision for those without transport.
• The bus service runs four times a day, and we run two cars. The bike is for leisure activities.
• Heating and hot water are provided by oil and electricity, although solar panels do provide most electrical needs in the summer months. A wood-burning stove is used infrequently because it is so much more time-consuming than switching on heating appliances.
• The post seldom arrives before 11am, there is only one post a day and sometimes none. Parcels arrive by a vast array of delivery vans that ply the area.
• There is no local evening paper, and even the twice-weekly local newspaper is syndicated and bereft of much local news.
• Bread is usually bought at a supermarket, and we make homemade bread once a week
• We eat out once or twice  a week and eat a ready-prepared meal once a week
• Shopping is brought home by car in reusable bags, although they are not for life, no matter what the supermarkets claim.
• Clothes are cleared out annually, shoes but not running shoes, are thrown out before worn out, and broken appliances are dumped.
• Holidays abroad at least once a year, involving flights and currency exchange.
• We have two TVs, two computers, as well as an iPad to watch TV. 

So claims by the government of improved sustainability are just another facet of fake news. 

Recycling used to be on a needs must basis - waste not, want not. Today, recycling is often a fake justification for new processes and products that generate profits for dubious enterprises. 

Rag and Bone is no longer a man with a horse providing a useful and genuine recycling service. Google thinks it is a high-end New York fashion company or a man who is a hip-hop singer.

Hot water for the house from an Ascot heater in the kitchen

Emergency electric fire

Ribble Bus for holidays to Morecambe

Newspaper delivery van