Congratulations to City of York Council for the work done to recycle plastic, paper, cardboard and tins at its city centre Foss Islands depot in York.

But a booby prize for the authority as, yet again, the collecting point has been overwhelmed at this holiday season.

A visit to the Foss Islands depot on December 30 found the glass bottle containers completely full, as were five waste newspaper containers. Also, the plastic bottle and cardboard skips were approaching their maximum capacity.

So, what does one do? Follow the depot staff and their request written on an old door to dump any recyclable waste in the refuse skips (which then goes to waste for the next thousand years in the Rufforth landfill site) or take home your bottles and paper?

Isn't it time the council got its act together and provided more containers at such a busy time of year when, presumably, there aren't so many collections by the private contractors?

Quentin Gray,

Monk Stray, York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.