WHO NEEDS WEEKLY WASTE COLLECTIONS ? NOT I !

It's reported today that the Government is back-tracking on its earlier promise to reinstate weekly household waste collections. This is, clearly, yet another example of this Government undertaking a massive 'u-turn', but one has to ask why they made the committment in the first place.

I have never filled my standard size 'black bin' with ordinary household waste. Recycling arrangements mean that paper, cardboard, plastics, glass and cans are all collected separately, along with garden waste, with collections being on alternate weeks - week 1 is the black bin, week 2 is everything else. Additionally, green kitchen waste can be disposed of with the garden waste, or composted, leaving very little that has nowhere to go other than in the black bin. I could probably survive quite well with 2 MONTHLY collections and, for the life of me, I fail to see why even families of 5, 6, or more, can't manage their waste within a 2 week cycle. In my borough, larger familes can ask for a larger bin, too, so why they should have a problem is beyond me. Yes, some waste may begin to decompose and smell but, wrapped in a plastic bag and enclosed in the lidded plastic bin, that really shouldn't be an issue.

To me, the problem is a simple one. Too many people buy too much convenience food, and other items, all prepackaged in plastic and cardboard, and can't be bothered with separating the components; additionally, we waste far too much cooked food partly due to the prepackaged stuff usually being in specific quantities that may not be appropriate for our individual needs. Families with babies use vast quantities of 'disposable' nappies which aren't truly 'disposable' at all - they all end up in the balck bin.

When I was a child, the dustman used to walk through the house to collect the metal dusbin from the back garden, carried it through to empty into the dustcart, and then returned it from whence it had come. My family of 4 had one dustbin, significantly smaller in volume than today's black bins, and all the waste, including papers, cardboard, cans etc., went in it, and yet I never recall there being a problem. Even in those distant days, much of the fresh kitchen waste - potato peelings or dodgy cabbage leaves - went on dad's compost heap and I don't recall the dustbin ever overflowing. Yes, the collections were weekly, but all the different types of waste were collected at the same time, with modern recycling not yet invented.

It seems that the passage of time has resulted in a 'convenience world' in which everything has to be made as simple as possible, one in which individuals have to do as little as possible while the state, in all its guises, services our every whim. In truth, it's time the state, and that really means the sensible but silent majority,

fought back.