Here are Fresh Start, we don’t like to see anything go to waste, so our team has been busy building a Garbage Garden made up of items reclaimed from our recycling facility in Swinton.
Everything in the small patch between our office and car park has been rescued from the jaws of fate, and while we are fully committed to transforming as much refuse into new resources as we can, we can’t help but put some of the more eye-catching objects to good use.
The focal point of the garden is a hefty clay patio heater, which is particularly popular on dinner breaks on crisp wintry days, when most of the staff gather around it for a catch up.
One of the other unusual pieces to have pride of place is a one metre high, hand carved tree trunk, which is a little too uncomfortable to sit on, so the ‘seat’ area is used as either a table or a makeshift bird feeder.
Dotted around the base of these two dominant items are a scattering array of ornaments, from a pair of toadstool houses, a laughing Buddha statuette, and a gallivanting rabbit hopping above a little green dragon.
A beautiful stained glass lantern sits at the centre of the plot, overlooked by a couple of sturdy but comfortable matching chairs.
To their left is plinth bird bath, which is frequent refreshment stop-off for our local feathered friends, and comes complete with a figurine of two children and their dog fishing into the ‘pond’ which accumulates on rainy days.
Topping things off, we have a small picnic table with a landscape picture perched on top to help set the scene.
When we say that everything has been reclaimed, we really do mean everything. The thousands of pebbles which make up the floor of the garden have all been salvaged on our rounds, as have the limestone and sandstone boulders which make up the rockery.
It might not win any design awards just yet, but our Garbage Garden is one of the touches which which makes Fresh Start the place it is.
