The Great Tip Adventure
How a Dump Run Became Family Fun
The tip. Or, as the council would like us to call it: the "Recycling Centre", because slapping a posh name on a pile of rubbish changes everything doesn’t it? Let’s not kid ourselves; it’s the tip, the dump, the place where broken dreams and rotting fence posts go to die. But for me? It’s bloody brilliant.
As part of the Kaleidoscope Project Monthly Challenge which is coming to an end tomorrow, I was inspired by two other entries I’ve read to take a more literal approach to the prompt of “The Tipping Point.”
The entries in question from:
and who both like to err on the side of humour and they are both well worth reading. I’ll link them at the end because the previews link boxes are huge!So, as I was saying, I think the tip is awesome. Let me explain why.
There’s something immensely satisfying about gathering all the accumulated crap from your house and garden. The half-decayed wood you swore you’d reclaim, sacks of Christmas cardboard the binmen ignored and a sofa. Then getting rid of it all before lunch. The planning is half the fun. Sorting wood with wood, cardboard with cardboard, and general crap into its own "who knows what this is" pile feels oddly like a strategy puzzle. But this is only the pre game.
Operation: Sofa Extraction
Let’s talk logistics. A tip run isn’t just "throw stuff in the car and go." Oh, no. This is a military operation and needs to be planned as such. You can’t just turn up ad hoc anymore. You have to book a slot in advance now because spontaneous tip runs died with Covid.
If you’re lucky, you’ll snag a sameday slot, but it’s more likely that your train will actually arrive on time, with a seat available, during rush hour than getting a tip slot on the day you're ready and motivated to go. So booking ahead is essential, then on the day of the appointment, when that reminder pops up on your phone, in a timely manner, prepare for the sacred ritual of loading the car.
Of course, if your car is a tiny Ford Fiesta like mine, the challenge intensifies. I previously mentioned a sofa. I outlined how I managed to score a free barely used sofa in my post about luck, and the old one it was replacing needed to go.
Have you ever tried to fit a sofa in a Fiesta? It’s like trying to squeeze a hippo into yoga pants. The solution? Full disassembly. Once you have ripped the cushions off, you need to skin the sofa. Our old one was leather so that’s exactly what it felt like! Then you need to saw the skeleton to bits. The parallels with disposing a body aside, if you’ve got a saw, a Stanley knife, and a bit of grit, you too can disect a full sofa into something that barely fills the boot.
When loading up the car, seats down to maximise space you start with the big stuff, the long lengths of wood go in first, then flat cardboard boxes, then you remember you forgot to line the boot with a tarp so have to start again. Then you need to fit the bags and boxes in, it’s like Tetris, but there are real world stakes, you want to avoid more than one trip at all costs.
You also need to balance the extra space that the front passenger seat affords vs having a helper. I chose to employ the services of my son for this trip to the tip, mainly because leaving him home alone whilst I go to the tip is not only frowned upon but a recipe for disaster.
Scowls, Skips, and Style Points
Arriving at the tip, you’re greeted by the local "guardian of rubbish", a gruff bloke with a voice like sandpaper, with a permanent scowl. Arrived too early? Scowl. Too late? Scowl. On time with photo ID and proof of address? Guess what? Scowl. It’s part of the charm really, because even though he's always scowling he sometimes lets you off with a little bit of "Chargeable waste" the stuff they can't recycle: rubble, broken toilets, plasterboard etc. It’s about £4 a bag. But if you say: "I've only got a little bit mate, like a bag and a half." Most of the time he will just wave you through because it's less work for him and he wants to get back to his newspaper or candy crush or whatever other important work goes on behind the little hatch in the side of a shipping container.
Once through the hallowed gates, it’s a world of skips, about ten of them, around 2m wide and 8m long (7ftx26ft), each with its own category: wood, metal, chargeable, electrics, garden and "general waste", the weird catch-all for all of the stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else, or if you are too lazy to have pre-sorted your rubbish. Adjacent to each skip is a parking bay. If you’re unlucky, your bay will be nowhere near the skip you need, adding a "forced march" element to the whole ordeal.
The action phase of the operation is just about to begin, once you're parked, the race begins. If you are towards the front of the queue of cars, you need to be quick because if you're the last person to dump all of your rubbish you are holding everyone else up. It's single file, there's no overtaking and so if you're at the back of the queue, the opposite is true, you might get stuck waiting for the old couple at the front to empty next doors borrowed transit van chock full of old kitchen cupboards one at a time.
Here’s where the real fun starts: skip shot putt. It really should be a recognised Olympic sport.
The tip isn’t just about dumping your rubbish; it’s about making it count. You don’t just plop your junk at the front of the skip like some amateur, it causes everyone to then have to walk around the side of the skip and it wastes time. No, you need to launch that thing with precision and power. Hit the back wall? 10 points. Smash something on landing or cause a bag to explode? Extra style points. Dump it at the front causing a bottleneck and slowing everyone else down? Zero points and eternal shame. Nobody keeps score but you know when you've done well. On, on his first tip trip, my son quickly caught on to this sacred art, launching cushions and rubbish with the enthusiasm of a seasoned athlete, just without some of the power, because he's 10.
Then, when you're finished, this is where the tip community comes into it's own. Once you have rushed as fast as you can to get rid of all of your own stuff, and your car is blocked in by someone in front, you help them. You see whilst it seemed like it was every man for himself, it's actually a team sport. For the good of the unit, because for those 15 minutes, that's what you all are, a team all working towards the same goal of getting rid of your crap and getting out of there.
A Day Out at the Tip
By the time we’d finished unloading, helping a few fellow tippers along the way, my son declared it "the best day ever." That’s right, forget theme parks and cinemas; the tip is where the real fun is. Where else can a kid spend 15 minutes launching rubbish, dodging spiders, and playing Rubbish Jenga in skips? It’s educational and entertaining, maybe. I'm not even joking, on the way home he asked how old you had to be to work there!
Beware of Stowaways
Of course, no tip run is complete without a lingering gift: the spiders. If you’ve unwittingly transported a few eight-legged hitchhikers, your car will let you know soon enough. Best to break out the hoover before your Fiesta becomes a prop on the set of the Arachnophobia sequel.
So, next time you’re drowning in clutter and need a cheap day out, grab the crap, load the car, and make a run to the tip. Just don’t forget, it’s not just a dump; it’s a way of life.
The Beauty of Imperfection and the Joy of Reframing
If there’s one thing the tip has taught me, it’s that you need to sort your rubbish before you go, not when you’re there! But that’s not some profound takeaway, so maybe it’s that life isn’t about perfection, it’s about perspective. The tip is messy, smelly, and filled with crap and spiders, but there’s a certain magic in finding joy in the mundane. You can take the dullest chore, slap a new frame on it, and suddenly it’s an adventure.
My son’s first trip to the tip could have been just another boring errand. Instead, I made it a game, a mission behind enemy lines to unload our secret cargo with military precision, launching rubbish like Olympians in a secret competition no one else knew about. The spiders became our unwitting foes, and every bag hurled to the back of a skip was a tiny victory. He loved every second, and I loved seeing him love it.
This experience taught me two important things:
There’s fun to be found in almost anything, if you’re can just to reframe it in the right way.
Time spent with the ones you love, even if it’s hauling a dismantled sofa in a Ford Fiesta, is never time wasted.
Because, like the tip itself, life doesn’t need to be perfect to be meaningful. It’s messy, occasionally smelly, and full of unexpected surprises. But if you can laugh, make a game of it and share the load with someone you care about, it’s worth every second.
The tip reminds us that joy isn’t about perfection; it’s about finding meaning in the mess and laughing along the way.
As promised thanks to my fellow Tipping Point challengers, you can find their posts next. It was Andy’s version that I resonated so much with that prompted me to write this one.
This is the best kind of parenting. Make it game and he'll want to play it every time! This sounds so fun.
What a great memory for your son. Seriously.