Recycling in France

I’ve just had a big clean-out at my place in preparation for moving house. One of the things I decided to get rid of was a boat oar. How did I end up with a boat oar in a ski resort? That’s a good question, and I can explain it, but the bigger question is how the boat oar ended up in a ski resort before it belonged to me. That, I can’t answer. Here’s what I know. A few years ago, I celebrated my birthday with lots of friends in my big front yard, but I had no sports equipment. No worries: we used a heavy plastic plate as a frisbee and we found a ball that the next door neighbour’s dog dropped for us to use. But we needed a bat. And that’s where the oar comes in. A birthday guest discovered it dumped outside the local poubelle (rubbish hut) across the road. We used it as a bat for the day, with the neighbour’s dog attempting to catch the ball before any of the people playing Rounders, and I kept the oar as a memento of the lovely day we all had. It has since stood dormant and on display outside on my porch. I have no idea who dumped it, but I’ve often wondered if they have driven past my place and seen their old oar, and whether it gave them any satisfaction that it had been saved from a future at a rubbish dump.

Fast forward a few years and I find myself with so much extra stuff that the oar had to go back where it came from: the poubelle. So, last week, I took it to the same place I found it, then walked back to my place to continue cleaning out my stuff. Five minutes later, I took an old suitcase I no longer need and a Mexican hat over to the poubelle. Where was the oar? The oar was gone! Within five minutes in a sleepy area outside the main village, somebody had seen the oar and decided to make it theirs. As the oar-keeper for the past few years, it was a gratifying moment for me to know that the oar had found a new home (or perhaps a fire to fuel). I love that the French around these parts see value in one person’s trash. Indeed, when I took the suitcase and the hat to the poubelle, I saw a pair of ski boots and some nice storage boxes, which had also been left beside the poubelle for others to take. Ten minutes later when I went back with a big rug, the suitcase was gone and the boxes were gone, but the hat and the ski boots remained. This was gratifying also to know that the functioning suitcase would get some use — and that someone valued it over a pair of ski boots. Darkness arrived soon after, but I can almost guarantee that the boots, hat and rug were found by new owners.

Garage sales don’t really exist in France. Instead, there’s the Vide Grenier (empty attic), where people group in a public place and display all their housewares that they want to sell. I guess the dumping of stuff at a poubelle fills a different gap, much like the old council collection days we had in Australia, where you’d leave your unwanted — and often broken — bulky homewares such as TVs, dishwashers and car parts for the council to take away. Normally, more than half of that stuff was reclaimed by others who saw some value in it before the council came to collect it. So I guess that no matter where you are in the world, people will always seek out junk.

Now, if only someone would dump a nice coffee table…