A delightful day at the dump: ‘The trick is not to leave with more stuff than I arrived with!’

A delightful day at the dump: ‘The trick is not to leave with more stuff than I arrived with!’ At the council recycling tip in Chingford, people drop off fridges, dishwashers, mattresses, golf clubs, bicycles and batteries – then head into the shop to hunt through the weird and wonderful treasures W hen an embalmed rabbit in a Perspex box arrived at the dump in Chingford, north-east London , last year, with fur on its head but its organs and skeleton exposed to teach veterinary students about the digestive system, Lisa Charlton knew she had to save it from landfill. She was sure that one of her regulars, a man interested in anything “a bit weird, macabre and bizarre” would buy it. And he did. Charlton, who has worked at the recycling centre’s onsite ReUse shop for a year and a half, has salvaged items ranging from furniture, old toys and lampshades to walking frames brought in by local people. She has put aside some cast-iron cauldrons for her sister who is “into crystals and healing” and runs a shop in Cornwall. Items that have come through her shop include vintage crockery, antique crystal vases with solid silver rims, a spindly chair from the 1920s and an old ammunition box. “I’m waiting for the day that one person will buy something for £2 and sell it for a profit,” she says. “The Del Boy moment.” The kind of item that she has missed and “happily missed – because we’re not experts”. Charlton and I are standing in a store room next to the shop at the Kings Road Reuse and Recycling Centre , sited on a former playing field on the outskirts of Waltham Forest and which opened in 1994, while her sister Kerry attends to customers. It is a cold Friday morning and it’s threatening to rain, but that doesn’t appear to have put off visitors. Already, at 10.30, the place is humming with activity. I can hear debris clattering against the corrugated iron container of the garden waste chute. Brightly coloured signs direct visitors to their destination: large containers accessib...