County Kerry residents are shaken after a goblin found rummaging in a green bin left glass, paper, and compostables in a single, deeply illegal layer.

A goblin was discovered Tuesday morning inside a residential green recycling bin on Bóthar na Coille Road in Killarney, County Kerry, and according to every witness present and at least one council officer who would rather not have been there, it had not separated its materials. Not even a little bit. Glass bottles, flattened cardboard, banana peels, and what appeared to be a soggy phone directory had been consolidated into a single dense layer, pressed together with what investigators are describing as ‘deliberate, almost contemptuous efficiency.’ Twenty-seven residents witnessed the scene. Several are still not okay.

The goblin, described by witnesses as roughly knee-height, grey-green in complexion, and wearing what appeared to be a reflective vest that did not belong to it, was reportedly discovered when bin collection operative Seamus Flannery lifted the lid at approximately 7:40 a.m. The creature was, according to Flannery, ‘absolutely in there on purpose.’ It did not flee. It made eye contact. It then pressed a glass jar further into the paper layer with one clawed finger, slowly, without breaking that eye contact. Flannery has since requested reassignment to a different route, a different county, and if possible, a different profession.

Community Notice

It knew exactly what it was doing. That bin was sorted perfectly fine the night before. I checked it myself. Whatever that thing put in there, it put in there as a statement.

— Seamus Flannery, Bin Collection Operative, Kerry County Council

The Contamination: A Breakdown

Council waste compliance officer Brídín Ó Murchú arrived on scene at 8:15 a.m. and confirmed that the bin’s contents had been rendered non-compliant under the Waste Management (Separation of Recyclables) Regulations. The glass alone disqualified the entire load. The compostables — believed to include coffee grounds, what Ó Murchú diplomatically called ‘organic matter of ambiguous origin,’ and a small quantity of what may have been goblin food — rendered the situation, in her words, ‘a write-off.’ The soggy phone directory, she noted, had been placed face-up, open to the Yellow Pages section for ‘Pest Control.’ She did not speculate on whether this was intentional. This reporter speculates it absolutely was.

Strictly speaking, this is a civil matter. The bin is on private property. What lives in the bin is, legally, a more complicated question and not one I am being paid enough to answer.

— Brídín Ó Murchú, Waste Compliance Officer, Kerry County Council

By the time WTC arrived on scene, the goblin had gone. The bin remained. Kerry County Council has issued a replacement bin to the affected household and has, according to a brief statement released this afternoon, ‘no further comment at this time regarding the nature of the individual involved.’ The bin collection for that stretch of road has been postponed until further notice. The twenty-seven witnesses have formed a WhatsApp group. I have been added to it without my consent. It is extremely active. This is Daryl, for WTC — What The Cryptid? — News Network, reporting from County Kerry, where the recycling contamination rate just got a lot harder to explain at the next council meeting.