Cotswold District Council is distributing wheelie bins so that garden waste can be collected and turned into compost.

This is a highly commendable initiative but an opportunity may have been missed.

Because of fears about identity theft more and more households are using shredders to make unwanted confidential documents virtually impossible to read.

Any sensible business makes sure that sensitive commercial documents are shredded before discarding them.

The quantity of shredded paper available is increasing.

Moistened, mixed with garden waste and encouraged by an appropriate additive such paper composts well.

Unfortunately, Cotswold District Council tells me that its composting contractors cannot handle such machine shredded paper.

They suggest that shredded paper be put into the paper banks but have no advice as to how it can be fed through the small slot with its brush obstruction so this material is not recycled.

In the 1970s a number of regional water authorities experimented by mixing shredded paper with garden waste and sewage sludge and produced excellent compost but the economics of that decade made it non-viable commercially.

Perhaps the time has come for a renewal of this type of co-operation.

ROY JENKINS, Meerings, Weston-sub-Edge.