How to cleanse your soul in a Civic Amenity Centre

Colm O’Regan explains why he has found peace in a recycling centre

REMEMBER my meditation plan from a column six months ago? Turns out I was all talk and no inaction. My quest for mindfulness didn’t last.

But I’ve found fulfilment in a new place. The Civic Amenity Centre.

I’m not quite sure where they got the name. When I think of civic, I think of pride: voting in a local referendum to change the village name to the pre-Norman version. Or, at the very worst, I think of the Honda Civic of the mid-1990s, driven too fast by a fella on his first provisional.

When I think of amenity, I think of something you might go to with the family — a swimming pool or a park in which a child is mourning a dropped choc-ice.

Somewhere along the line, these two positive words were combined to mean ‘the recycling centre’. Not the odd bottle bank stuck on the side of the road, no. This is the mother ship, where everything, apart from uranium and fibre-glass, goes.

It’s a weird place that seems to exist on the edge of the world, where the birds don’t sing. The buddleia bushes wave silently in the mistral wind that blows only there.

You drive slowly to the barrier and the person at the gate asks: ‘what have you got’? You could lie about how many landfill bags you have. Or claim it’s all newspapers. But you mustn’t! It’s bad karma. Pay for your stuff and you will get your reward.

Because when you get there and empty your car, what a feeling of relief! It’s cheaper than therapy and more useful.

The car is full of things that had been staring at you and making you feel bad. They were too big for the bin, or the relic of a habit that you’ve felt guilty about not keeping up. One day, you said ‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. I’M GOING TO THE DUMP.’

You might start with the papers. It’s a humdrum beginning. Recycling newspapers is the washing up of the recycling trip. But, soon, you’re onto the clothes the charity shop won’t take. And once you squeeze your stuff in past the bags of other people’s clothes — because it’s only emptied once a decade — you start to feel lighter already.

Then, it’s time for the paint. We all keep paint for touching-up purposes, and then we don’t touch up. The paint is stored in the wrong conditions and what was ‘brilliant white’ is now the colour of ‘developing world tailing pond’ . More guilt. Just bring it to the Civic Amenity Centre, where it will get a dignified end-of-days.

In my local CAC, the paint-disposal area looks like Jackson Pollock’s training wall. Already, it looks like the paint is having fun.

But the best moment is when you have a household appliance. Have you ever thrown a broken hoover off a height? A hoover that drove you nuts, because the door kept opening and the suction was bad. (You were too mean to buy the recognisable makes and bought a brand called ZOBORTOV.)

Well, watch that head-wrecker soar through the air. Smile as the the door that kept opening just snaps off completely, as it nestles with a five-month old Christmas tree and an old game of Guess Who?.

(And then, sheepishly try to retrieve it, because you’re supposed to put it in the WEEE crate) No matter. Nothing can dent your mood. Going to the Civic Amenity Centre is a sort of confession. Your sins of over-consumption and hoarding are forgiven.

And, like normal confession, it’s not long before you’re sinning again in the retail park.

But for one glorious moment the soul was clean.

Because when you get there and empty your car, what a feeling of relief!