The Quest to Recycle the Toaster (version 2, now with 100% more dragons)

On Friday, my toaster stopped working. This was a terrible disaster, of course, not least because I was hoping to have some toast at the time. Anyway, somehow I managed to survive the weekend, long enough to purchase a new toaster, whereupon I could again have toast. Thus far, my adventure of the weekend appeared not to be one of my greatest of all times. I mean, it was thrilling in its own way, to be sure, but it wasn't quite on a par with blowing up the Death Star, or taking the tourist route to Mount Doom, or whatever it is that the cool kids do these days.

However, all was not lost, for as I was checking the user manual for my new toaster (in case there was a secret ejector seat or other Bondian gadget), I found a note to the effect that, per European Directive X, household appliances should not be thrown out to landfill, but rather should be recycled. And so began The Quest to Recycle the Toaster.

Now, you'd think it was easy. There are recycling centres all over the place, right? So, I'll just hunt them down, and Robert becomes some sort of distant relation. But no! For the recycling centres have particular things that they'll take, such as CDs and textiles... but absolutely not home appliances. So, I started looking for the solution in a slightly wider context. Presumably, if these things have to be recycled, the ability to actually do this must exist, right? After all, I can't possibly be the only person in history to have a toaster that has stopped working.

Well, it turns out that the plans to actually enable people to recycle home appliances were put in place... and then delayed, and pushed back, and delayed some more. They're in that bureaucratic hell known as "coming soon".

I can only assume from this that there are a multitude of people out there, all with dead toasters, all waiting for the councils to sort out recycling facilities so that they can dispose of their toasters. And now I am one of them. Frankly, this gives me a sense of belonging such as I have never before known. Plus, I have toast.

So, it was quite a good weekend, really. Also, there was a dragon.