File:Forlorn, forsaken, forgotten.jpg

English: Sunday 11 May 2008, 3:28 pm. In Rosebery Avenue, Tottenham, London N17.

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What do you see?

Well, obviously, a fridge-freezer. Why is it on the pavement? Probably dumped there because it doesn’t work. And its owner (a resident? or perhaps a landlord?) didn't know - or couldn't be bothered - to make just one phonecall.

In 2008 Haringey Council offered all residents a free recycling collection of fridges from people's own homes. It took one phonecall to arrange. Plainly, not enough people knew about that.

So one person’s throwaway becomes another person’s problem. It needed to be reported and collected. And in the meantime it creates other problems. Imagine you’re blind, for example.

How does the local council – and its waste contractor - get across its message about recycling??

The Fridge Door as a Medium of Domestic Art?

Now think of what we don’t see. When it was 'at home' - inside the house - was this fridge bare?

Or was it, for instance, like Nico Hogg’s fridge door in his photo covered in magnets, notes and . . .  a toy monkey?

Aren’t fridge doors one of the significant breakthrough media of domestic art and design? As with T-shirt logos of the 1960s & '70s, isn’t the kitchen fridge magnet an iconic, signature artefact of contemporary Western civilisation? And fridge door and magnet together the art and heart of everyday family life?

Well, alright, that's a slight exaggeration. But look at some of the Flickr groups which celebrate the fridge door. What it tells us about private lives. How it can be fun. Millions of people treat their fridge door as a noticeboard. And many thousands as a frame to create their own domestic art.

Forget fridge. Think poster. Think temporary street noticeboard! Announce to the fridge dumper and everyone else walking or driving-by that there is another way! That it's environmentally friendly. And it's free!

Back in 2007, at a local neighbourhood meeting, Laura Berryman came up with a modest proposal. Why not have colourful, lively, sticky labels on dumped fridges; to give information about the free fridge recycling collection. Laura suggested a slogan. Give Your Fridge a Good Send Off !

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¿Como un collage cotidiano?

§ Click here to read a bit more about Laura’s suggestion. § JenX5 ran out of space on her fridge door and used the cooker. § A Spanish group tells us: "la puerta de la nevera entendida como un collage cotidiano ". It's a collage of everyday things which we need or like to see. § A multilingual Flickr group celebrates beguiling fridge magnet poetry. § Nico Hogg’s fridge door . § The Great Refrigerator Project reveals that: : "The refrigerator door is a microcosm of our lives".

§ Flame airbrushed fridge by Jerry Cates.