PERHAPS a lesson is in order as to what is regarded as green waste because it is blatantly obvious the council does not know.

Garden waste is anything that is grown in the garden, not just grass and privet as the council would like us to believe. It also includes vegetables, where strangely enough vegetable peelings come from. Believe it or not, there is no meat involved in making vegetable peelings.

Kitchen waste is any foodstuff that has been cooked and then left over. Now this, bizarrely enough, can indeed include meat that has been on the same plate.

So now we have made that clear there is no good reason why vegetable peelings cannot be put into the green bin as they do quite easily compost down.

However the weak link in the chain, as usual, is the council refuse department. The garden waste is contaminated after it has been tipped into the garbage truck that has not been steam cleaned out after a week collecting household waste. After all, it probably contained waste meat.

We also hear that the garden waste is left to rot down on concrete in the open air, where it is also contaminated by insects, birds and bird droppings (bird flu anyone?) and of course mice and rats.

Come on, council, in your ever-increasing attempts at social engineering, you're going to have to come up with a better excuse than the current, quite pathetic one, not to provide a proper green waste collection.

Steve Smith,

Dijon Avenue,

Acomb,

York.

Updated: 10:15 Saturday, October 15, 2005