WHEN polled for my opinion on recycling and waste collection last year, I voted for the policy of alternate weekly collection of general and garden/recyclable waste rather than collecting both weekly and seeing a rise in council tax.

Presently, 78 per cent of household waste will end up in a landfill, and only 12 per cent is recycled or composted. The UK must meet a target of 30 per cent by 2010.

Consequently, great efforts are being made to reduce the amount of waste being produced. We have had bottle and can banks for years but not enough people use them.

There have been community composting projects for years. Again, people will not use them. I do not understand why.

It never ceases to amaze me how little responsibility people are prepared to take for their own rubbish. By only collecting the main bins once a fortnight, one may hope people will try to reduce their waste to fit in it. That would dramatically reduce the amount of waste to landfill.

Perhaps everyone complaining would like a landfill site at the back of their house, because at this rate, it will not be long before that is what happens.

I am a single adult living alone and I need to put out my main bin for collection only five or six times a year.

I appreciate that larger families have more waste, but then there are larger bins, and four people should not produce four times the waste of one person.

I make the effort, not only to recycle but to take responsibility for the waste my home produces. If I want something at the supermarket, and I feel it is heavily overpackaged, I do not buy it.

Cheryl Smith,

Garowby Way,

Heslington, York.

Updated: 10:59 Saturday, September 24, 2005