So P Allenby (Evening Press, December 31) saw an employee of the contractor who manages the Foss Island depot dumping the mess left by people who couldn't be bothered to put their bottles and paper in the correct container.

This is regrettable but hardly convincing proof of "a total lack of commitment on the part of the City of York Council" to recycling.

P Allenby should check out the list of over 50 recycling sites in York available on request from (01904) 636000 and as published in the Evening Press and The York Citizen. He may care to contact our full time and enthusiastic recycling officer, Jonathan Eyre (01904) 551536 for details of all the other recycling initiatives we have introduced or to which we are actively committed.

These include the campaign for composting green waste (with highly subsidised composting bins); the Schools Waste Action Club (introducing recycling awareness and initiatives into York's schools); the Green Business Forum (encouraging York businesses both to minimise the waste they produce and to recycle); the large scale green waste composting, the inert waste recycling facility and the electricity from landfill gas installations introduced by Yorwaste at Harewood Whin. And the 1,000 York properties which already enjoy a kerbside recycling collection scheme - a scheme which will be expanded across the city when funding permits.

York's integrated management strategy will be published for consultation and adoption later this year. It is to be hoped that York Friends of the Earth will want to play an active role in the process rather than recycling tired misinformation in letters to the Evening Press.

Coun Martin Brumby,

Chair, Environmental Services Committee,

City of York Council.

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