THE changes to rubbish collections look to me a simple cost-cutting exercise.

As I understand it, 30 per cent of a normal rubbish bin is garden waste and the city council proposes to collect these new bins on the alternative fortnight to the waste bins now being used.

This would result in a collection one week of a bin that is only 60 per cent full and the next week a bin that is 40 per cent above its capacity.

Would it not be better and more cost-effective to only collect the garden waste bin every three weeks and the normal bin every week for two weeks, then miss one week (the garden waste bin week)?

This would result in the garden waste bin being on average 90 per cent capacity after three weeks and the normal bin averaging only five per cent over-capacity, or set a more realistic target for the reduction in household waste.

The current proposal requires a 20 per cent reduction, a target set far too high and I think unachievable.

If the council persists in this change I fear people will not support it which will result in wide- spread abuse of the new bin, an increased use of amenity tips or fly tipping by normal respectable people who would can no long cope with the smell of their two-week- old rubbish or who have acquired more rubbish than normal.

Ken McArthur,

Lancar Close,

Wigginton,

York.

Updated: 09:52 Saturday, August 27, 2005