Good! Sod 'em all.

Recycling, like global warming, is party political nonsense. I hate being told what to recycle where, and I'm glad that it's all as futile as I thought.

The next supervolcano will almost certainly sort this planet's problems anyway. Go Yellowstone!

Oh. Sorry if that offends the chattering classes.

j griffiths, manchester, england

I think its sick that we are being forced to recycle if its going to a landfill anyway. What I find more annoying is how nobody seems to care about the condition of our planet anymore, and this story just goes to prove how nowadays its all money,money,money and being lazy and nobody cares about the environment anymore. Im 14 and Im concerned about my future and if I have children, their futures too. If we are all being encouraged to recycle, then why isnt what we recycle actually BEING recycled??? Why cant people/councils/governments realise and understand that Earth wont be around forever, and the longer we take to get things sorted the shorter the lifetime of the planet will be.

Rhys James, Cardiff, Wales

I really think that people take recycling to seriuosly. It is a waste of time. Global warming isnt gonna happen when i'm around so i dont care about it. JOKES!!! It is very important. It should play apart in everybodies life.

Joy Remington, essex, england

What I find most annoying is that Necastle City Council won;t issue recycling boxes to those people who live in buildings with more than four flats in yet they send us information about the need to recycle!

Meanwhile, producing these leaflets on paper which the recipients can't recycle they are passing planning permission for hundreds of flats througout the city which will also be not eligable for recycling. When I ring the council to complain the answer as with every enquiry is 'I didn;t personally make the decsision madam'.

Have they realised that those who do recycle against the constraints put up by them usually drive there to recycle, more thatn likely defeating the whole object of it. A big congratulations to the Council for offering a competey screwed up service once again. Well done

Helen Parry, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE ,

Ann of Barnet mentions the time spent washing stuff out.
I would add to that the water wasted. It must outvalue
anything recovered by an enormous factor. Unfortunately
once something like this has reached hysteria level,
no amount of logic can stop it.

Michael Purches, Abingdon,

Whilst I wholeheartedly agree with many of the points raised in this article, I must point out that the press seem very quick of late to condemn the recycling industry and council's alike. There is very little coverage of the upward battle that Council Officers face in getting residents to recycle. Having worked as a Recycling Officer for the last 3 years for a Greater Manchester Council and a London Borough I am all too familiar with the cries of "I pay my Council Tax so why should I do the Council's job". I work within a team of people who are dedicated in their job and strive to make sure that residents receive a good value for service whilst trying to achieve internal and National Government Targets. Perhaps the public would like to see an article on the positive side of recycling to encourage them to do more instead of this constant scaremongering.

Claire Howard, London,

What annoys me is the number of hours of wasted time washing out all those glass bottles and cans, which we are required to do; sorting out papers to remove personal addresses etc before recyling; and, of course, the time it takes to sort them into categories, before putting them out. As our council (Barnet) do not recycle plastics at the doorstep, these have to be taken separately to be recycled, as with clothing and cardboard. This must amount to many hours of labour over a typical year. What a waste of time when we now hear that much or it is dumped in landfill at the end. If the man hours of everyone contributing to this pointless exercise was costed, then the actual cost to the economy would be huge, not to mention the environmental cost of not recycling, only pretending to. The councils may get paid for the amount of recylable rubbish they collect, no matter what they do with it, but the taxpayer pays in the end -- and pays twice. Its a massive con.

Anne, Barnet,

The complex processes of collecting and amassing millions of small packages of recyclables in the end can do nothing at all to reduce the inevitable increase in the CO2 load in the atmosphere from fossil carbon. You may believe that zero waste policy will slow the rate of increase of CO2 in the Atmosphere but a reduction in demand for fossil fuel in the West depresses fuel prices helping drive demand for energy-hungry products and processes from elsewhere.

Without waste and landfill how are you ever efficiently going to provide carbon capture? And more than 20% of the UK electricity from renewables is already gained from landfill gas.

The DTI want to spend loads of tax payer’s money on carbon capture. How much cash will they spend per ton of carbon?
They should sponsor properly managed landfill which offers added benefits such as improvements to sea defences and green electricity produced from landfill gas.

Allan jones, newbury, berks

sam aitken is a genius,
What a fantastic proposal.
These prisoners have such a 5 star tretment.
That needs to be changed, 4 a true panisment.

harish, hayes, uk

Typical of the hypocrisy of this Government. Issue the directive and then turn your back and hope that someone carries it out. Whether councils actually do the right thing is immaterial to Labour and that's why we are all counting the cost. A more irresponsible Government it would have been hard to find. Unaccountable from start to finish.

judy, Liverpool, england

A recycling company cant find an outlet for these items!!!!
Recycling is too complicated, put things in this box, dont dare mix them up without fear of being fined, get them collected once a fortnight.
Why not have one bin for recycling items (all), and have a local council collect that to take to a sorting centre. The Prison Service could set up recycling sorting centres and use Prisoners [of a suitable type] to do this work who would be putting something back into society whilst in Prison. Probably this would be against their human rights or some EU law and it would be much better for them to sit in their cells watching tv etc for 23 hours a day?

Sam Aitken, Cheser, UK

Our council has provided us with a combined recycling box for paper and cans. When the box arrived it included a flimsy removable divider. Within a few weeks this was broken beyond use by those emptying the box. While it is possible to obtain a replacement there seemed little point as only the next week the collectors mixed up our box with our neighbour, their box also contained a broken divider. The dual recycling box was obviously a false economy on the part of our council. So while we neatly arranged cans on the one side and papers on the other, it is depressing to read that no care is being taken to ensure the items are deposited correctly.

joy newman, stevenage,

How far is glass transported to be recycled? I would be interested in the average journey length a bottle takes to the recycling plant. Also, don't forget that the truck carrying the glass (cullett) will be returning empty.

As glass is silica (sand) and the furthest distance from the sea in England is around 70 miles, would it not be more environmentally friendly to return it back to the sea?

Peter, Maidstone, Kent,

This myth of recycling has always excisted just ask refuse collectors and watch the glass collecting lorries up end the containers into one pile so that it makes no difference which hole you put your bottle through. We need a nationwide coordination collection system until such a thing exists I shall carry on visiting my local dump and not bother sorting whilst I smirk at those that do knowing it makes no difference.Too many unanswered questions exist to make recycling believable, just a couple, cereal packets is that cardboard or paper and it depends which recycling company your council uses so invariably it ends in landfill along with the cardboard covered in metal staples and sticking tape, biodegadable tape and staples might help, does it even exist? All those tens of thousands of food waste bins produced,transported, weekly cleaning to stop the stench, and now I suspect used as storage containers in the shed, how does this add up to cutting greenhouse emissions?

Michael Hellman, Richmond, Surrey, UK