A week ago I received a leaflet through my door informing me that my brown bin will be emptied every other week, with the normal rubbish getting emptied in between. The leaflet tells me that this will be for the forthcoming year.
I thought this was an April fool sent out early, so I rang the Council and, lo and behold, it's true The Council in all its wisdom is putting garden waste on the same level as household rubbish, regardless of health and hygiene.
Everyone knows that the grass doesn't grow in the winter and very few plants do either. As a novice gardener, I cut my grass once a week. I do my pruning once a year and any garden waste I have, I reuse it.
OK, everyone's not like me, but common sense tells me that if I was to use my brown bin for garden waste, it would take me months to even half fill it - not a fortnight. A lot of people don't want, or even have time to look after, a garden.
Surely a survey should have been carried out before this took place. The bin lorries will only be wasting their time and taxpayers' money. Or is the cash-strapped Council hoping to make money out of it by selling compost or chipped bark to use as mulch and cover an increase in their expenses?
I wonder if there is anyone using the "dog poo path" at Hazelbank - another cracker thought up by the Council six or seven years ago. No doubt the Council will say that it has been a howling success.
I also have a red box, which is about one eighth the size of a plastic bin and is for plastic bottles, tin cans etc. This gets emptied every couple or three weeks - and it could be bigger. Sometimes the wind blows it down the street.
I have a blue bin for papers and cardboard, which gets emptied every six weeks. People don't have the money to buy papers every day. Mine gets emptied every six months. I have even asked the people next door to use it as well to try and fill it up.
I'll have to go now and put out my blue bin - or is it the red box? The black one got emptied last week .... or did it? I must also remember not to leave any black bags beside my bin because they won't be lifted. I must remember that the lid on the bin must be closed tight or it won't be emptied.
The Council should have thought about this first. I wish I had been a politician instead of a hod carrier. Life would have been so much easier.
James Rafferty, Rathcoole.