Don't waste your time recycling organic material, Mr Hume.

Just buy a waste-disposer unit for your kitchen sink. That thing grinds almost everything (including animal bones) into pulp and flushes it down the drain. It takes no time at all, reduces the quantity of your waste (thus saving money when the eco-Nazis start charging by weight) and removes the smell that will accumulate over the two week interval (imposed by said eco-Nazis to save money).

If we all did that, the councils would have to find another way to raise money. I'm waiting for the day they find a way to charge us for breathing 'their' air.

David Garfield, London, UK

Dear Part Time Recycler,

Compost from food waste is used all over the country in many ways and to grow all sorts of products, for example mushrooms in East Anglia.

If you simply chuck food in the bin it goes to landfill where yes, it does rot. But in landfill conditions it breaks down and produces methane- a much more harmful contributor to climate change than CO2.

Why not find out the facts and become a full time recycler?

Anne, London,

Mick
Personally I do not like councils dishing out financial penalties if residents fail to recycle. Many councils seem to go about promoting recycling in ways that get the public off-side, this being one.
In my opinion kitchen food waste collections should be weekly and then the residual waste can collected fortnightly without rats and other pests becoming a problem.
I'd be very interested to learn which is your local council.

Isobel, Reading, UK

I find it hard to understand why Londoner's are encouraged to recycle food waste. Is there a shortage of compost for city farms or is it taken elsewhere. Isn't poo suitable for compost? There is plenty of that on the streets. Surely if I put food waste in the bin it just decomposes at the dump? I do recycle food as I want to do my part but I don't really know why! Can anyone explain?

Part Time Recycler, London,

Dear Mr Hume,

Thank you for adding your voice to the hundreds of other people who seem to find it difficult to rinse and flatten. Perhaps there should be an instructional video also provided by the Council which shows just how simple these two actions can be. Your comments support what the rest of Europe already thinks about the UK that we are embarrassingly behind the times and fearful of change.

Kate Nelson, London, UK

If recycling made economic sense, people would pay you to do it. That's why aluminium cans have value. Potato peelings do not.

David Gillies, San Jose, Costa Rica

For goodness' sake, it only takes a few seconds to chuck your waste into the appropriate recycling, composting or refuse container. Other European countries regard recycling as normal behaviour, without making a childish fuss about so-called "eco-crusaders" or "freedom of choice". Mr Hume, it's your choice to buy and consume stuff, so it's also your responsibiIity to help your council to deal with it when you've finished with it.
I would be interested to hear more about these "experts" that Mr Hume talks about. Contrary to what he says, nobody is seriously suggesting that domestic recycling will "save the world" - it's just a step in the right direction.

Simon Hill, Exmouth, UK

I presume most people if they have recycling facilities will use them. However where I live the local council has removed the communal recycling bins from my flats as they were being improperly used. So I now have zero option for my cans, bottles and newspapers other than to drive to the local recycle centre. Which even if I had a car would seem like a rather counter productive journey. I have little faith in a joined up government approach whether it be local or central.

Mick, St Albans, Herts

If I'd wanted to be a rubbish collector, I'd have found a job doing just that. It would have paid me money.

However, the thought police seem to think that I should pay money - to some Spanish or French company - and make an entire career move into the rubbish collection industry, with my stinking unemptied dustbin..

I really think that's rubbish. Do I also smell a ploy to keep middle England busy - too busy perhaps, to realise what other rubbish is being enacted into Law in our name?

Charlotte Peters Rock, Knutsford,

Everyone's time is precious, not just people who boast how busy they are. We should all find in ourselves the community spirit to recycle, instead of selfishly leaving it to someone else.

Tina, South Wales, UK

Like most people, I have little time. Too much of it is already spent on government form-filling -- unpaid, of course. None of us ever voted to become unpaid rubbish-sorters as far as I know. But what voice do we have?

We might as well be living in Nazi Germany, when this sort of thing is possible. If we did, at least the trains would run on time! The TV news would probably be less biased, at that.

Roger Pearse, Ipswich,

Roger Rocket - This is fine if you have a garden. What happens when you live in small flat in central London? Where are you supposed to keep all these various bins? Our small kitchen already has 2 bins - one for the recycling, one for everything else. Councils need to provide the appropriate facilities - so do new housing developments.

Oz, London,

All societies and that in England in particular is full of control freaks. The right has always had an authoritan streak, but as its self-interest has been apparent it has been easier to counter. Though similarly born out political class's desire to exercise control, that of the left, with its for-the-greater-good sanctity is more insidious. It is everybody's duty to resist this creeping fascism. The puritans never went away, they just redefined the good fight.

Jeremy in Oz, Perth, Australia

While we currently recycle our kitchen waste (peelings etc), if I was ordered to by the council then I would stop!

andrew, hitchin,

Much of the waste could be avoided by limiting the unnecessay multiple packaging of foods.
There was a time when the role of local Council was to provide services for the benefit of the local residents.
Central Government has redefined their role as supplemental tax gatherers and arbiters as to how we should live our lives.
Possibly, we are living in the last Communist state in Europe?

Arnold Cronin, London, UK

NIMBY. That's ok then; You forget all about composting material; just throw yours in with your fish-heads and used nappies and I'll take care of mine. One thing is sure, though; When your local authority comes looking for my fields for a dump, they ain't going to get them! Then you won't have to worry about separating your rubbish. You can put the lot into your car and sneak off down some dark lane to sling it into the hedge. No compulsion though. Unfortunately you will still have use some of your "precious time" to sort it, in case there's any clue as to your identity, otherwise the garbage police will be round to pick you up.

john Cullen, Cork, Ireland

Hey, the free market fixed an embarrassingly high value on my time, so I"m pretty confident that it's worth more than yours, yet I don't begrudge the half-second it takes to toss something into the right-hand sack instead of into the left-hand sack. What makes you so special?

Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK

its all very well councils making us recycle but they and the eco-police have not answered two fundemental questions. One. What are they going to do about all the "waste" gas which is produced by landfill sites and is just burned off? as an example see the deerplay site just outside Burnley and Secondly, how are they going to control the 97% of Carbon that is produced by nature? insist that widelife wears nappys maybe!!

Steve, Manchester,

I recycle food scraps (for example, peels, discarded leaves from lettuce) in a plastic bin now. In the evening, after dinner, I take it to my compost pile. No problem. I feel good about it and think I am making good use of the scraps and keeping them out of the landfill or the water supply (kitchen disposal). If I didn't have a compost pile or another convenient alternative. I would just throw them in the trash.

Roger Rocket, Washington, DC/USA