I AGREE with your editorial 'Canny ways with waste' (May 10) regarding all of us stepping up our recycling habits.

It's just a shame that threats of landfill tax bills are the only way to get City of York Council to start being proactive.

However, I should set the record straight about the difference in attitude between Selby District and City of York Councils when it comes to getting their residents to use the scheme.

I lived in Selby for more than four years before moving to York. Your editorial did not mention that Selby are at least a couple of years ahead of York when it comes to recycling.

A blue box for glass and cans is provided but in Selby they have a lid and are waterproof. This is useful because you can stack your second box on top of it, which contains both paper and cardboard, and is recycled locally at Rigid Paper. York's response? A pathetic plastic bag for newspapers only. We don't read many papers in our household but we do produce a lot of waste cardboard from packaging. Six months ago we started recycling plastics and obtained a further box for that. We now take the cardboard and plastics once every month to Foss Islands for recycling.

Why bother? Well, apart from the inconvenience of the monthly trip to Foss Islands, it takes minutes to wash tins and glasses instead of binning them, which means our bin is never more than half full.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for those moaners who call fortnightly bin empties "pathetic".

For two adults to fill their bin to overflowing every week, without even a child in sight, is pathetic.

Jon D Dewsnap,

Wilton Rise,

Holgate, York.

Updated: 11:30 Thursday, May 19, 2005