Adelaide’s hard rubbish tradition needs to be reclaimed from the council killjoys | Tom Bowden

Our city’s suburban streets used to look like warzones and we liked it that way, writes Tom Bowden. Have your say.

Regular readers will know I’m not a huge fan of local governments.

I think they’re inefficient, often mismanaged and agree with one of our greatest philosophers that they are a “greedy piglet that suckles on a taxpayer’s teat until they have sore, chapped nipples”. That philosopher being Ron Swanson from the TV show Parks and Recreation …

Using the defence of ‘streamlining’ they seem to offer us less and less each year while charging us more and more, and while some of these streamlinings are arguably necessary, they have subsequently robbed us of one of the greatest social experiences known to man.

I’m talking, of course, about the whole-suburb hard rubbish collection. Remember them?

Before it became this boring: “Each household can book two collections a year of 1m by 1m or whatever it is” nonsense?

Now the thought process is: “What can I get rid of?” but back then, back in the halcyon days of this glorious institution it was the more optimistic: “What will I find?”

The greatest ones were in affluent suburbs, because they’d have the best stuff to put out.

Whereas people in my suburb relegate to the footpath solely things that are broken or building waste, the rich folk were putting out perfectly good stuff just because they’d recently got a newer version of it.

I’m talking electronics, sporting gear, whitegoods – you name it.

My wife and I, when we were first married, were lucky enough to live on one of metro Adelaide’s most prestigious streets.

We were renting a super-basic two-bedroom unit, just to dispel any misconceptions your boy was living large.

People would come from far and wide for this event, turning the street into an apocalyptic scene for the evening as clapped out cars crept along, people hanging out of the windows as they scoped the merchandise on offer.

People would lumber around zombie-like with TVs over their shoulder. You’d see fridges on their side on the roofs of their cars. Not roof racks. Roofs.

They’d wind down their windows and tie the knots inside the car. If a driver spotted something they wanted, they’d practically throw one of their kids from the vehicle and instruct them to sit on the desired goods while they looped back for it – the thinking being you’ve got to be a fair dog of a human to take something from a kid.

And then there was this one scrap metal guy. A true legend of the game.

Dude had a station wagon, behind which he would pull a trailer. That trailer had a tow ball welded onto the back of it, and that one was pulling – you guessed it – a second trailer.

Hard rubbish collection in Adelaide's glory days, as reimagined by AI. Picture: AI generated

I’ve not seen this backyard jobby B-double since they changed the format.

I’ve picked up some incredible things from hard rubbish over the years. My Weber kettle that got me into charcoal cooking? Hard rubbish.

My Thunderloop Thriller slot car set? Hard rubbish.

My Mexican rain stick made out of a real cactus that when you turn upside down it sounds like it’s raining? Hard rubbish.

My David Bowie program from the Serious Moonlight tour? Hard rubbish.

My Toyota Camry? I bought that. Needed something to tow my two trailers, didn’t I …

Whole suburb hard rubbish free-for-alls – I miss you.

Was it the neatest and most efficient way of the council conducting an annual clean up? No way. It can’t have been. The streets looked like a war zone after.

But it certainly beat sore, chapped nipples.