I RECENTLY received a newspaper called Echo from a collection of local councils urging the public to be more green by using less energy and recycling more waste.

All good advice, but which would have been better received had they got their own house in order first.

I inquired further about what happens to the stuff I take to the local recycling facility.

Instead of being re-used or recycled, all electrical waste is simply landfilled. Items put in the metal waste skip that have a substantial amount of non-metal content are taken out and landfilled.

When the paper and cardboard skips are full, the excess is landfilled.

Sometimes the market value of waste paper is so low that the skips aren't even emptied.

People are discouraged from recycling tin cans because they are expected to "post" them, one at a time, through tiny holes which are too high up for some people to reach.

Useable items which have been discarded because they are simply unwanted or unfashionable, such as children's toys, radiators, furniture, bicycles etc. are also landfilled.

In Devon, where recycling is taken seriously, such items are sorted out from the waste and sold off very cheaply to the public.

Even in rural areas in Devon residents are provided with bins with compartments allowing most paper, glass etc. to be recycled.

In Wyre Forest everything is put in dustbins, and all trade and business refuse is landfilled - an appalling waste of which Wyre Forest District Council should be ashamed.

The amount of waste taken to recycling facilities is only a tiny percentage of all the waste generated. The very idea of encouraging the public to take their recyclable waste to council recycling facilities is laughable.

Even if these places could cope with the extra traffic, it is likely that more pollution is caused by people driving there than is saved by recycling.

Wyre Forest needs to adopt an effective recycling strategy that deals with all refuse collected. At present it can't even deal with the pitiful quantity which the public delivers to its door.

Echo also urges the public to consume less, and in particular avoid over-packaged products. If more emphasis were put on this instead of trying to deal with the huge amount of waste we generate, councils would not have the refuse problem they are now faced with - and we would not need an incinerator.

ALLEN HARDY

Aggborough Crescent

Kidderminster