I WRITE with regard to recent developments in our waste collection services.

Some years ago Test Valley Borough Council informed us all that it was no longer acceptable to collect green waste from wheelie bins, because it deteriorated in the airless conditions within to such an extent that it was unusable, and the Green Bag scheme was launched.

The Green Bag scheme saw the introduction of supplementary charges, over and above rates, for waste collection.

The scheme was, as reported in your pages at the time, generally unpopular: as well as the extra cost, there were problems during wet conditions with leakage from the bags staining driveways, full bags were bulky to store until collection day, and empties bags were often hard to track down on returning home in windy weather.

Last week, notices proclaiming ‘Great news!’ appeared on emptied Green Bags. The news is that subscribers to the Green Bag scheme will now have the opportunity to purchase a wheelie bin in which to place their green waste for collection!

So, we have come full circle: green waste can be satisfactorily collected in wheelie bins after all. How and why remains a mystery, but it will now cost you £25 for the extra bin, plus a Green Bag registration fee, as well as your rates!

Moving on to general household waste collection, I saw black bins adorned with stickers this week, urging us all to reduce the amount we put in them.

Few of us would argue against the need to reduce landfill and waste incineration.

However, I do believe that to ask you and me to sort our rubbish into umpteen different categories and make corresponding extra journeys to dispose of it, not to mention finding the space to store it all in the meantime, is a poorly thought-out solution.

Surely it would make better sense, environmentally and economically, to make one bulk collection of recyclables, using a single lot of fuel and producing one set of emissions, and do the sorting and separating at a recycling centre, where the incineration of any waste material could help to power the recycling plant.

Mrs R Yarlett, The Crescent, Andover