LETTER: Contact your MP with rubbish issues

A bonfire is a large and controlled outdoor wood fire.'¨It is traditional to have one on November 5, with an effigy of a brutally executed terrorist '“ there were three others, but their names were boring and unmemorable. '¨Since the self-appointed custodians of 'British values' can't make up their minds about which is more important out of tradition and businesses generating the absolute maximum possible profit, it's apparently appropriate to have one on the nearest Friday, or Saturday or Sunday, instead, so we don't go home from being hard working even a minute early.

It is an annoyance that you have to pay £20 to have an old polyester sofa collected. It is an annoyance when the plastic wrap from the new one won’t fit in the green bin. It is an annoyance that you have to pay £30 a year to have plastic bags full of tree clippings collected. It is an annoyance when you wake up to find some “private sector recycling service” has collected everybody’s waste for a tenner a time and dumped it out of their unmarked van in the bushes behind your fence.

These are political issues, arising from austerity and deregulation, that you can take up with your elected councillor and MP.

Perhaps you could ask them how the costs of clearing up fly-tipping and loss of trade to air pollution compare with what the council “saves” by charging us for rubbish collection? Just a thought. They are not going to get better if you build a pile of plastic waste in your back yard, or as happened the other day, in the actual town centre, tell yourself “well, it’s close enough to firework night, this’ll teach Fawkes a lesson” and commence a gas attack on everyone downwind.

If someone’s smoke is causing a nuisance, you can call Environmental Health on 01623 463189. And if they’re not even bothering to watch over it, or they’ve built it next to a fence or shed or their own house, I really wish I was making this up, the number is 999.

Lindsay Wheatcroft

Morton Close,

Mansfield