I SHOULD like to allay the concerns of readers who have written about the new garden waste collections being introduced by City of York Council.

Only properties with gardens will receive a bin for garden waste - terraced properties, most flats and sheltered housing schemes won't be part of the scheme.

One letter came from a resident of Chatsworth Terrace (August 19), which is a street that would not be included in the scheme because residents won't produce much garden waste and have nowhere to leave their bins out for collection.

The council's refuse collection teams will not take away bins that are contaminated. Any loads found to be contaminated can be traced back to the area they came from.

Council employees will then visit householders in that area to advise them how to use their green bin and help them to ensure there is space inside their regular rubbish bin for the remainder of their waste.

Garden waste that has been contaminated by other rubbish would have to be sent to a landfill site instead of being composted, which means the efforts of all those people who have carefully separated their rubbish would be in vain.

Garden waste makes up around one third of the volume of a typical rubbish bin. By putting it into our green bins, there should be plenty of room in our grey bins for general waste. Anyone who experiences difficulties with this can call the York Pride Action Line on (01904) 551551 for advice.

The main aims of the garden waste collection scheme are to reduce the damage we cause to our environment by disposing of so much of our waste in landfill sites, and to avoid paying up to £7 million a year in Government fines missing landfill targets.

Sara Goodhead,

Waste development assistant,

City of York Council,

Blake Street, York.

Updated: 12:15 Monday, August 22, 2005