The family is fed up with being told to recycle and reduce waste. We recycle fully now (we have three very large compost bins, two wormery's and water butts). No waste is generated by my family - all we are do is pass through what is sold or provided to us by businesses when we visit shops, supermarkets or buy products on-line - waste we cannot control. Government should be legislating against businesses and not targeting people. Just judge the size/volume of the actual products you buy against the amount of fresh air in the packaging, etc.

A. Howell, Bury St Edmunds,

All of this is fine, but a very important thing that needs doing to encourage the population to recycle is to make it easy. Just look at countries like Spain, for example. There are recycling containers every 200 metres, so the only thing you have to do, is go out from home, and in the way to the underground, car park, etc... is to take your bag with glass or paper and put it in in a few seconds, instead of the need of taking the car to go to the tip to recycle plastic, as it happens in Doncaster.
And that green box is not very well "thought-through", as if you put cans and glass bottles with paper, it can get soiled and it won't be able to be recycled. But they tell you to wash them first. Well, what about water-waste??
And I will like to see the smell that is going to surround England in summer due to fornightly collection! And what about plastic bag waste due to the need of double bagging to avoid smell as the council information recommends??
Not very smart way of doing things

ER, Doncaster, South Yorkshire

Subsidise jobs for business, (tax credits), tax for business and now waste for business. Tell you what, just slap compulsory purchase orders on all of our homes and repossess them for taxation purposes and get it over and done with.........Oh, and don't bother paying us just require BUSINESS to give us bread and water. We can all sleep on park benches.

Judy , Liverpool, england

Surely this is a very small step to recycle household waste. Surely there could be more done at a more Governmental level to have renewable energy sources put in place so that very valuable carbon based fuels are not wasted. Once these are burned off into the atmosphere they cannot be replaced very readilly.

I do understand however that Council Taxing wasteful Councils is a way to pass the message onto the Council Tax payer.

d davies, Edinburgh,

Domestic waste is only a small proportion of the whole. Most waste that goes into landfill sites comes from industry. A large amount of domestic waste comes from excess packaging. Therefore is seems odd that the government is concentrating on domestic waste while allowing industrial waste to continue with the vague promise that industry will try to clean up its act. If the government were serious about this they would target industry and excess packaging. As they have not, one can only assume that this is yet another revenue raising scheme foisted onto already stretched council tax payers.

H Tait, Huntingdon,

I agree with waste recycling the only problem with Barnsley is that if you wish to use a recycling centre and have a small van or crew cab jeep you cant get in without first ringing the town hall to get permission to use the site, also you cant walk into the sites for some reason.What if you dont have a car and want to recycle waste how do you get rid of it at these sites.

BP, Barnsley,

What do we have to bear the ever increasing of COUNCIL TAX for.?

Tax and Tax again !!!

Bernard Parke, GUILDFORD,

Recycling has to be one of the most pathetic mantras of the green movement. It makes not one iota of difference. Our whole economy is based on increasing consumption and the world will never run out of resources, we'll simply modify what we consume. Landfill is purely a question of available space. Here in Greece there is lots, so everything goes to landfill. The methane emission issue is simply another of the climate change myths and an excuse to impose yet more tax

David Jenkins, Weybridge, UK

We have a small crate for waste paper. It has no lid so the paper gets wet and heavy when it rains, or blows round the garden when windy. I shredded some documents for security reasons, and was told off for putting the shreds in a plastic bag in the crate. For the next week I put the shredded paper in the bin. All the local jackdaws pinched beakfuls for nest building, and some they just pulled out and left to blow round the garden. Maybe they didn't like the colour? Now the shredded paper goes on the floor of the chicken house, and from there gets composted. We are asked to recycle paper to save trees.
I asked my postman not to put unaddressed junk mail in my letterbox. He said he has to deliver it as the Post Office has contracts for distributing this paper mountain. I asked him to save me a trip, and post it straight into the recycling bin - cutting out the "middle man" so to speak. He can't do that either. We are suppose to get no more than 9 a week I think. We get a lot more.

Beryl Russell, Windsor, England

I am actually happy about the pay-as-you-throw scheme, I mean to say that , as politians and government, push for more taxation and squeezing the British Public, of every penny , sorry pound, they can get. Fair Play to them. We British are pritty thick in the head when it comes to fighting against any thing. I myself hope they tax us even more, then maybe the British Public will wake up and think, all of these parties are basically out for themselves, even in the Green Scheme. Maybe a new form of Government will be grown from many years of bitter resentment at taxing the good and the dead.

Peter Hagan, Liverpool , England

Some ideas obviously need recycling here, unless we deal with the bigger issues of supermarket waste and industrial packaging etc,etc... individual contributions will largely be a recycled waste of time and effort.

In supermarkets in Ireland you bring your own bags, useful handy-sized, washable,sturdy and green. If you want to have a plastic bag you pay for it. Here, at least Tesco are offering green points to encourage people to be more aware.

Who though will manage to educate the young gangs that create litter and whose idea of recycling is measured in revolutions per second of drink tins and bottles?

Mary Bradshaw, Basingstoke,

its all very well the councils telling us to recycle but birmingham city council doesnt recycle plasic.
most of my bin waste is plastic bottles, plastic wrapping, carrier bags etc.

if they collect plastic the rubbish would fall massively.

also why do we only get one little box for paper, i read 2 newspapers a day at least and can fill the box in less than a week with junk mail added in there too!!

the councils claim to be serious about recycling but in my opinion they do the bare minimum to claim govt subsidies!

jps, birmingham, west mids

This government must be recycled . No mention of penalties for commercial waste , and the attititude that if they are paying for private landfill , that they do not have to recycle! Example of very well known supermarket chain who were undergoing a major refit, and they landfilled their ovens !!! House holders are making great efforts to be careful and thrifty with domestic waste, but how many holes in the ground will we need if the current commercial attitude continues! The pay as you go idea is just another headache put upon a very weary worndown electorate.

Mrs Maggie Snook, wool, wareham, Dorset

The UK gets more stupid by the day and the idea that we are behind parts of Europe for recycling is a joke. My wife and I emigrated from England 15 months ago as we could no longer cope with our once beloved country. FACT - here in the Canaries you may be lucky to see the odd bottle bank if you travel far enough. I can categorically state that in 15 months we like thousands of other residents just bag everything up as we please and dump it in the waste skips provided. Everyone seems to be on the same footing so don´t make us laugh about recycling being the same for all Europe. There is only one piece of trash that needs sorting in the uk and that is all those brain dead politicians who should be placed in a sealed skip and shoved down a mineshaft.
ps We love living over here and although we do get more than our fair share of immigrants they only use it as a stop off point on their way to the UK

terry, Mogan, Gran Canaria

We're only the voters after all, we don't actually give the politicians any money do we? Now if I was a captain of industry...

Jennifer Hynes, Plymouth, England

so once again the ordinary people suffer the consequences paying for a lot of unnecessary packaging it is the source that needs to be targeted . virgin land and wooded areas needs more protection from developers but like many things it depends on how much more we can squeezed.thirty years ago ordinary people were saying seasons were changing and nobody listened then so why penalise us now

b clarke, cardiff, wales