After Christmas

This is Santa's dirty little secret, this is the post-Christmas boat. Barges loaded with empty containers waiting their turn to dock at London's Western Riverside Waste Authority off Smugglers Way (honest, that is its address).

Empty containers ready to be filled with used wrapping paper, Christmas card envelopes, gift labels, tinsel, present boxes, wrapping ribbon, used rolls of sellotape, inkless pens, broken daleks, empty boxes, pages containing completed or not completed lists, plastic bags from Sainsburies, Tescos, Waistrose, Selfridges and a thousand other shops, uneated roast potatos, sprouts, carrots, the carcass of the turkey, plastic bags used to hold the veg, string bags to hold the clementines, empty bottles of cranberry and red current jelly, used batteries, batteries that have some life in them but what the hell, the plastic bowl the Christmas pudding came in, empty milk bottles, juice bottles, wine bottles, champagne bottles, beer bottles and tins, cream bottles, brandy butter, used napkins, dead candles, corks, unwanted presents, sofas to be replaced in the sales, stale ends of bread, the remains of salad that made everyone feel a bit queasy, that quiche (don't ask!), receipts (so tough if you wanted to return or change that present you already have/didn't want/doesn't fit), newspapers, the old razer now replaced with a new one, shirts absolutely ruined, broken plates, bowls, glasses, shattered Christmas tree decorations, burnt gravy, toast that no wanted, empty marmalade jar, several thousand clementine and banana skins, those little plastic envelopes washing machine and dish washer tablets come in, empty deodorant sprays, shower gel bottles, last year's phone, a printer no one knows how it works and a cable that no one knows what its used for, that old router that isn't fast enough any more, cat and dog food tins, empty bags of crisps (chips), stale biscuits and buns, couple of Christmas cards got the message wrong so had to start all over again, piles of the usual junk mail, empty tubes of pringles, silver and red foil that was around a chocolate Santa, empty (alas) boxes of chocolates, turkish delight, nuts, figs, tin foil splattered in Turkey fat, ..........

Give the Earth a year long Christmas present - and recycle!