I thought for a moment it was an April Fools' Day joke when I read the story about downsizing our wheelie bins in Bristol, then I realised it was September and the council were not joking.

Not content with collecting our rubbish every two weeks, they now think it's a good idea to give us less space to put rubbish in.

Who in their right mind comes up with these bright ideas at the council?

Do they actually go out on the streets and see the large bins overflowing with rubbish?

On Wednesday morning, our bin collection day, I spent almost 40 minuets sorting out our rubbish, plastics to go to our local superstore, various tins in one bag, glass in another, food waste in the brown bin and paper and cardboard somewhere else.

Our wheelie bin was full up, that's two weeks of rubbish from three people.

I also heard Councillor Gary Hopkins on the radio saying this will work and there are a lot of bins on the streets that are not full. Well I am not sure what bins Mr Hopkins has been looking in but it's sure not in this area.

There is already enough rubbish being dumped around the Hengrove area, if they reduce the size of the large bins there is going to be even more rubbish dumped around.

I foresee a plague of rats if they start downsizing our wheelie bins, as people who don't care will just dump rubbish anywhere.

I suggest the council just concentrates on putting in bus and cycle lanes and shutting off bits of roads and bridges here and there, just leave our bins alone.

Tony Waite,

Hengrove.

I was very surprised to see on BBC TV that rubbish collection may take place only once a fortnight in Bristol. This should surely not happen in a civilised society.

Here in this part of Spain, large communal bins are placed strategically in the streets so that no one has to walk too far to deposit their rubbish.

The bins are emptied daily. It is of course much easier to do this when the rubbish of, say, 20 houses is concentrated in one bin.

It would seem best for English councils to get away from the concept of individual dustbins that lie around for weeks on end.

Whatever the disadvantages of Spanish life, dirtiness is certainly not one of them.

Patrick Campbell,

Spain.

An article carried by the Evening Post on Wednesday, September 9 had the title "We're going to shrink your bins".

I would like to inquire, from the local authorities, about the savings they expect to achieve from shrinking bins.

No figures were mentioned and this does not make a very compelling case. How much is being spent these days on paying for waste that is tipped into landfills. By reducing the size of the bins 33 per cent from 240 litres to 180 litres, what is the actual projected savings expected by the council's environment services.

Indeed, reduced council taxes for those producing lower amounts of waste would be a good incentive, however, again if we can have some numbers, then perhaps people would feel more at ease with this new scheme.

I would very humbly urge the council to relaunch this article in the newspapers, but this time around, peppered with figures about actual savings expected for both the council and the households.

Manzoor (Max) Wahid,

Bristol.

I have just seen on the BBC national news that Bristol City Council are to introduce smaller bins. I totally agree because having seen over the years what people put into their bins is beyond belief.

On the news program it actually shows one of the large bins full to the top and when the owner tries to put the same amount into one of the smaller bins, it only takes half the contents from the large bin.

But when you see the contents of the large bin you could see why it was full. There were large paint tins and boxes, all full of fresh air, no wonder it was full.

Give people a large bin and they think they have to fill it.

It is also time for the Government to ban excess packaging with a total ban on plastic. When you look at the packaging used by the supermarkets, you can see that in some they have plastic packaging and in others cardboard, all containers can be made from cardboard or tin foil.

SB Faulkner,

Barnsley.