The government must meet an EU requirement to cut landfill by 50 per cent by 2013, thus it would seem that a fortnightly rubbish collection, and therefore an increase in the amount recycled, is one of the ways local authorities can cut the amount of landfill. However, I would urge all those citizens such as Samantha Lloyd-Jeffries who dutifully sort their waste for recycling to think about what happens to it when it has left the green bins. Britain is getting better at collecting waste but not at treating it.

Of the 8.6m tonnes of paper saved each year for re-use only 4m can be pulped in this country. The rest along with much old glass and plastic must be exported, generally to China. Mixed waste paper in July fetched £48-£59 a tonne, it has now fallen to £5-£8 a tonne. Markets for glass and plastic have fallen too. The result has been an upsurge in applications to store waste rather than recycle it, in the hope that the prices recover.

Paper mountains and plastic peaks of stuff that nobody wants to buy do not make the country a greener place.

I would suggest that a model that depends on foreign buyers wanting to pay for British waste cannot be sustained.

As a country we need to produce less waste in the first place. We also need to develop a bigger domestic recycling industry of our own.

Last month the Institute of Mechanical Engineers urged the government to stop trying to recycle so much waste, and to use it to produce energy instead. It argued that 17 per cent of Britain's energy needs by 2020 could be met by the combustion of dry waste and the anaerobic digestion of organic matter.

Denmark has become expert at small-scale power generation where whole communities process waste locally.

I cannot see why such a model could not work here. What could be more satisfying to the recyclers of Kirklees than to process Kirklees waste in Kirklees and in the process augment Britain's power supply.

Alistair Hartley

Gomersal Lane

LITTLE GOMERSAL