Emer McLysaght: Christmas brings out the inner binfluencer in me

“Calling all binfluencers ...” a tweet from Stevenage Borough Council in the UK begins, just when you think you’ve truly heard it all. But no, binfluencers do exist. A binfluencer is typically defined as the person on your road who knows the schedule inside out. If Diarmuid’s brown bin is at the end of his driveway at 10pm on a Wednesday night then you may be sure that everyone else will have come crawling out with their brown bins by half 10. No sign of Diarmuid’s green bin? It’s either not green bin day or Diarmuid is dead.

The binfluencer tweet from Stevenage Council was at attempt to draw attention to their Christmas collection schedule. The influx of waste generated by presents, food, crackers and boozing means that improper planning might see you with a full green bin on December 24th with no collection in sight. Nobody wants to be out on St Stephen’s Day jumping up and down on an L.O.L. Surprise OMG House box and 20in of compressed wrapping paper. Not in your nice new Ugg slippers. Anyone who’s serious about maximising their waste collection potential has been strategising for weeks on how to have the emptiest bins come December 25th. Even as you’re reading this now it may be too late.

Ireland’s number one binfluencer is a man called Gerry McBride (@gerrymcbride on Twitter). He’s been advising people since September to start thinking “schedules, habits and capacities”. His tongue is firmly in his cheek, but he’s providing an invaluable service. Meanwhile, you know our old pal Diarmuid’s been putting his black and green out full to the brim since October. There hasn’t been a stray piece of cardboard in his house for weeks. Diarmuid’s been on to Santa to get him to unbox as many toys as possible in advance so that Santa and Mrs Claus can spread out their own green bins too.

With the 25th falling on a Sunday, you’ll hopefully have at least one heaving black bin off your hands in the days leading up to Christmas, and a gaping onyx chasm ready to receive all that festive kitchen roll you treated yourself to, as well as the disposable oven tins, the Marks and Spencer prosecco and prosciutto sausage rolls came in. Look, if you can’t spoil yourself with a prosecco and prosciutto sausage roll at Christmas, when can you?

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Of course, we’re not all at the mercy of the wheelie bin. As a renter I’ve run the gamut of bin choices. The bags, the tags, the wheelies and now the hulking shared megabins stored in a room in the basement of my apartment building. It’s a room that could easily double as the set of a true crime re-enactment. There’s one poorly lit and narrow entry/exit. The door is almost impossible to open when your hands are free, never mind encumbered by black bags leaking bin juice on your ironic indoor Crocs. True crime documentaries always describe the victim as “lighting up any room she (always she) walked into”. There’d be no lighting up the basement megabin room, no matter how dazzling she might be, inside and out.

The shared waste space means I am prone to engage in some bintrigue, ie extreme nosiness about other people’s rubbish habits. Many of my neighbours either don’t know or don’t care about separating the recyclables from the general waste. Some can’t even bear to make it as far as the green or black skips before they let the bin bags fall from their grasp. As a lickarse I could never be so inconsiderate. The bin room is not only a source of serial killer fear, but also of quiet rage. One never has to worry about a bin strategy because even when the megabins are full, it’s deemed acceptable to just fling the rubbish in their general direction. An underpaid hero will take it from there an hour before your alarm even goes off.

The waste generated at Christmas is deeply problematic. As the world burns we get a free pass to consume and produce multiples of what we usually do. We placate ourselves with recyclable wrapping paper or reusing old newspaper, but for me it often comes with the same sense of futility as washing out the yoghurt cartons. In the grand scheme of things, what difference can it really make? I did see someone (an influencer, not a binfluencer) commenting that nobody needs several new disposable fast fashion outfits for Christmas, and they were right. As a child I did get a new outfit every Christmas, but it was chosen for its wearability throughout the rest of the year, not because it was red velvet or sequinned. Red velvet and sequins are for life, not just for Christmas.

Meanwhile, if you’re stuck for gift ideas, you can get a gadget that smushes down the rubbish in your bin so you can fit more in. Perfect for the wannabe binfluencer in your life.