My local council has recently sent out a leaflet to every residence which says that from September 10th we have to recycle a whole shedload of stuff and that there’ll be £1,000 fines for persistent non-compliance. Fair enough, except that the recycling boxes they provide are minute (about a foot wide, a foot high and a foot and a half long) and we now have to put the following items in them: plastic bottles, cardboard, paper, batteries, tin cans, foil, glass bottles and jars, textiles and shoes and engine oil. I just can’t see that a week’s worth of this stuff will fit inside such a small box.

Add to that the fact that the boxes are stolen regularly and I reckon the council are going to have to provide much larger receptacles very soon, probably in the form of green wheelie bins to complement our black ones, or face real difficulties with pissed-off locals. I give it six months at the most.