The one subject that is always in the letters pages is rubbish ! Wheelie bins, flytipping, rats and flies.. and readers complaining about them.

Why is it that the complainers think that the problem belongs with the council? The fact is that we buy something that comes with un-wanted packaging, we eat just half our food and want to waste the rest, and somehow that becomes the council's problem. It seems accepted practice that if we don't want something it immediately becomes someone else's problem.

As a child I grew up in a family of six, and the council collected one standard dustbin per week from each house. Everything went in the bin, and then went to landfill.

Now councils collect one wheelie bin per week, which is over twice the size of the old dustbin. Councils may collect different bins on alternate weeks, with recyclables one week, and residual waste the next, but they are still collecting twice the volume each week. The point is that we really must reduce our waste and reduce what goes to landfill.

One correspondent writes about "having to sort his waste", I guess this means that he mixed it all up first, but I am puzzled that he finds this so difficult.

My household is currently four adults, and we recently asked to switch to the smaller bins, because it was taking us several weeks to fill the standard one. Now we have the small ones we still don't need to put them out every time.

Bristol may be one of the first councils to move towards making the smaller bin the standard, but it is the right way to go. How else will we all be encouraged to waste less?

Cllr Peter Tyzack South Gloucestershire Council

I have noticed that there are plans afoot to reduce the size of our wheelie bins in a bid to reduce the waste we produce.

Bristol City Council seem bent on imposing without consultation on the good citizens of Bristol plans that are poorly thought through.

I lived in Droitwich Spa in 2001 and they had a superb system which recycled all plastics, cans and bottles through a system of coloured bags that they supplied each householder.

They also continued to collect black bins every week, not fortnightly. Bristol seem to think things up without consulting other councils.

Also, having reduced our services effectively, why do we not see a reduction in our council tax.

We are about to see reductions in all sorts of services but no reductions in council tax. I can't believe that Bristolians are not hopping up and down protesting about this.

Robert Koya-Rawlinson Bristol

Your leader article in Wednesday's Evening Post about the North Somerset Council considering reducing rubbish collection frequency is very relevant to the present situation at the Backwell Recycling Centre.

Rubbish collection should not be reduced without introducing door-to-door plastic collection, which I understand is being undertaken in Wolverhampton.

Plastic containers are probably constituting a third of our rubbish these days, which has increased tremendously over the last few years, with the Government seeming unable to force supermarkets to reduce use.

This was exemplified only this week when I took a large bag of plastic to the Recycling Centre only to find that the massive container was not only full but overflowing. After all, plastic won't degrade in landfill sites but waste food will rot, so please district councils consider plastic collection not waste food.

Peter Lamb Backwell