In our local borough (Barnet) we are the proud owners of yet another plastic recycling container. This one is blue and comes with a large black hairnet or snood! We already have two. One for newspapers and paper and another for tins, cans and glass. All very commendable and all stacked outside the frontdoor. This is not counting the ordinary black wheelie bin and a further green wheelie bin for garden compost. With me so far?

The new blue plastic box with snood arrived with a flyer from the council. It tells us all very clearly that this box is for plastic bottles (tops removed); cardboard (cleaned and flattened???); food tins (licked clean with tongue); glass, tins (I'm sure that was covered in black box number two) and aerosols (unpunctured and definitely not BRUT deodorant). We appear to be a very conscientious borough regarding landfill then. Or do we? If each household in Barnet requires 5 (and counting) plastic containers for waste so far...will number 6 be necessary for anything omitted?

Toothbrushes?
Clingfilm?
Empty crisp packets
Dead lightbulbs (no I can't be arsed with the planet-saving variety)

Very soon the wheelie bins shall be collected half-empty but I doubt whether we shall see a reduction in our coucil tax. And plastic containers please! These cannot be bio-degradable. Surely they should have been whittled up by eco-botherers weaving cabbage leaves