it pays to recycle - by Theo

Just around the corner from our flat is a recycling place, a Chatarreria, which buys paper and metals. I remember noticing it when we first moved in. As we're practically religious when it comes to observing recycling, I figured we might make a few cents selling our paper recycling to them, though to be honest I've never even been over to inquire what they pay. We haven't needed money that badly to make the effort, and neither, to begin with, did it seem the general public did either. Occasionally during our first year here I might see an old lady turn up with a few carefully tied bundles of old newspapers on her wheelie trolley, but otherwise they seemed to get little by way of walk-in trade.

However over the past 6 months there seems to have been a different shift. The first time I spotted it was a quiet Sunday morning, I was on nap duty and I watched with quiet amazement as a young chap, maybe 24, pushed a shopping trolley up to the paper recycling bank, push his arm in and grab out great wodges of magazines to fill up his trolley. Now I know that, thanks largely to Chinese demand for raw materials, the market value of scrap metal has shot up massively over the last few years (and indeed I have seen people rolling up to the Chatarreria with trolleys of metal pulled from skips) but I didn't realise there was much value in second hand paper. Clearly, however much they get for it, it's worth it. Whether it's just because I've been looking for it or people genuinely are on the paper hunt more than before, but I now see them everywhere. The paper hunters range from solo operators, pushing trolleys of various descriptions around the street, raiding the big, public recycling bins, to van loads, who drive around working in teams.

Well, in times of crisis I guess any bit of paper can serve for cash.

Making a mobile - by Theo

It was Friday, so I wasn't working, and I decided to make my daughter a mobile. I think we'd read somewhere that brightly colored mobiles are excellent for helping young babies to develop, so I figured it was worthwhile. I didn't really have a plan, so I just gathered together a load of stuff I thought would be useful.
Coat hangers, picture wire, scissors, ribbon, toothpicks, old cards, wrapping paper, present labels, cardboard, Christmas decorations, sellotape and glue - anything that could be reused. By this point I had got the idea of crossing two coat hangers to use as the main support. Then, after finding some nice gold cardboard that had come with a present for Rosie, I decided to use bits of that to hang further things. It also gave me the idea of trying to use - as much as possible - bits from the packaging of presents Rosie had received. That way the mobile really would be Rosie's.

Cards were cut up, wrapping paper raided, and cardboard shapes glued together. A snowman joined a rocking horse, a butterfly, a bunch of roses and an elephant dangling from bits of wrapping ribbon. After an interruption for dinner, the finished article was finally, delicately bound together and the resulting contraption hung above Rosie's occasionally-occupied sleeping spot.

Sure, it's not going to win any design awards but I'm pleased with it, not least because of the amount of re-using (as opposed to recycling) that went into its creation.

Naturally, I don't think Rosie has noticed it yet.