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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Comment
Nova Weetman

I used to hunt for the perfect discarded magazine at my gran’s as a child – and the joy of rescuing rubbish has never left me

A pile of broken furniture with a happy face sprayed on to a sheet
‘It’s never just about the item. It’s about saving something from the tip and giving it a new life.’ Photograph: Juhani Viitanen/Alamy

When I was a child, the highlight of visiting my grandmother was being allowed to take her rubbish to the communal refuse room. The room had a chute that you could drop tied bags of household rubbish into, and they would travel down to a furnace somewhere.

My brother and I took it in turns to push the bag in, leaning over to try and watch it travel the length of the silver chute. Sometimes we’d try and pretend we could see the flames as the bag hit the furnace.

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