I do my bit as far as possible, composting where I can, separating my paper, tins, bottles, cardboard and garden waste.

But it seems Hyndburn Council’s ridiculous stance on recycling is a sad one for the planet!

Over the weekend I trimmed the trees around my garden and this produced more cuttings than was possible to fit in my green bin.

I therefore filled my black bin with the remaining cuttings and put a large sign on the bin which stated ‘Garden waste only – please recycle. Thank you’ and put it next to my green bin at the end of my drive, along with the bottle bin, paper sack, plastics sack and cardboard.

Unsurprisingly, I returned home from work and everything had been taken, apart from the green waste in the black bin.

I telephoned the council to establish why and was advised that ‘the van didn’t have enough capacity’ (although many of my neighbours had no green recycling so I do not accept this explanation, and at no time was my address requested so the representative taking the call had no idea where I was calling from and had no idea as to how full or otherwise the vehicle was). Their advice was to empty the black bin into the green bin and await the next collection in a fortnight.

When I pointed out that I had more gardening to do, the advice was to “store it” until the next collection (a month from now!) This is clearly not possible as I will have more green waste by then, so my only option (which I advised the council I would take) is to add a plastic bag or some other non-recyclable waste to the black bin (which is currently full of recyclable waste, thereby turning the entire bin into non-recyclable waste) and await this week’s collection.

Steven E Crowe, Great Harwood.