I AM looking forward to the refuse collection changes. They will herald the kick up the bum I need to recycle.

I appreciate the council will be hit with fines if they exceed landfill targets and will have no option to pay them. But they will recoup the money from us one way or the other.

For any scheme to work, public participation is paramount. Let's be brutal here, it doesn't take much to wash and sort your tin cans does it? On the Continent, each bin is "chipped" and the address the bin matches is set a yearly recycling target depending on how many are in that household. Every time the bin is emptied, the weight is sent via the "chip" to a running total on a computer and at the end of the year a total is given.

Households that beat the target set are given reductions in taxes. Who knows, in time that may happen here. As the saying goes, where there's muck, there's money!

PR Willey,

Burnholme Drive,

Heworth,

York.

Updated: 10:23 Wednesday, August 24, 2005