The Three Bins

Three bins appeared in Damir's home. The blue one was for paper, the yellow one for plastic and cans, and the green one for everything else.

Dad had set them up. They stood side by side in the kitchen like a traffic light with its colours mixed up. Damir walked all the way around them and knocked on the lids.

"Why do we need three?" he asked. "We used to have one bin, and that was it."

"All our rubbish used to go to one big heap outside the city," said Dad. "Now the paper and plastic can become something new. We just have to help them."

At first Damir got confused. Take a juice carton: is it paper or plastic? Dad showed him that you rinse it, dry it, flatten it and put it in the yellow one. And an apple core? Into the green one. Or better still, into the compost for Grandmother's flowers at the dacha. Grandmother said peelings and apple cores make the very best soil.

Dad started giving Damir little quizzes right there in the kitchen.

"What about a newspaper?"
"Blue!"
"A tin from the peas?"
"Yellow, but rinse it first."
"A sweet wrapper?"
"Ooh, that's a tricky one. Green."

Damir loved this game. Soon he was quizzing Mum and Dad himself, and answering faster than anyone. Within a week he was sorting without even thinking, as if he had always done it. Mum said the kitchen even felt roomier, because the old bin no longer overflowed by evening.

On Saturdays he and Dad carried the blue and yellow bins out to the yard. Special containers stood there with pictures on them, one for paper and one for plastic. Damir emptied the bins himself. The paper slid down with a rustle, and the bottles clattered merrily.

"Dad, what happens to them next?" Damir asked.

"A truck comes and takes them to a factory," Dad answered. "They soak the paper, mix it up and make new paper out of it. Maybe new notebooks. And they turn the plastic into new things. Even park benches and warm fleece jackets."

"Jackets out of bottles?" Damir couldn't believe it.

"Out of bottles," Dad laughed. "Rubbish that's been sorted isn't quite rubbish any more."

In autumn Damir was given new notebooks at school. On the cover of one there was a little symbol and some tiny words saying it was made from recycled paper. Damir stroked the cover for a long time. Could it be made from his very own cereal box? He smiled and didn't tell anyone. It was his little secret.

Back home, Damir took his felt-tip pens and drew a little picture guide. The blue bin with a newspaper, the yellow one with a bottle and a can, the green one with an apple core. He hung it above the bins so guests wouldn't get confused either. His aunt, who came to stay one weekend, studied the drawing for a long time and said she would do the same at her house.

That evening Damir put the last sheet from his sketchbook into the blue bin. On it was a cat that hadn't come out quite right. Tomorrow that cat would set off on its journey to becoming new paper, maybe even a new sketchbook. Damir brushed his teeth and went to bed feeling very pleased.

Goodnight.