If you throw out food then yes it might stink. But it also tells your neighbours that you are wasteful. I only buy food that I actually am going to cook. I then eat what I cook and there is little waste. Any peelings are composted. Anything nasty smelling goes down the toilet. My kitchen bin is emptied only every two weeks and it might smell from the fish packaging, but then the trick is to cook fish when the bin is nearly full, so it does not hang around long. There are ways around the problem.

You can charge me for what's in my bin if and only if you can prove I put it in there and not my b*****d neighbour across the street.

Dont see why - lorries have to deliver the bottles to the supermarket and normally return empty - they can now return full - no extra trips needed

Before aquisitions of companies such as Schwepppes and Dayla etc. there used to be local distribution and return, and all these centres were delivered with was concentrate and replacement glass containers. Since the mergers and national distribution took over, the distribution now requires many more miles than it used to.

Supermarkets could return returned used bottles to the depot, and these could be collected by the supplier, but legislation or cost would have to force them to do this, it's not like they will do it out of the goodness of their heart. The logistics of returning something would probably almost double in cost (less fuel for reduced weight) because of sorting, and until it become profitable or less costly to do so the suppliers and retailers won't do diddly squat.

Perhaps all we need is for one big name supermarket to take a leap of faith in the right direction.

What about refunding for recycling?

I have no idea how they would enforce this around our area. Nobody has bins - everyone chucks black binbags in a heap on one part of the street. We have recycling baskets for our recycling but our baskets recently were stolen so we can't recycle. We tried leaving recyclables in a cardboard box but it just stayed there for about three weeks until it was collected.

To be honest, I don't eat fish on the bone so I don't have fish heads.

In the rare case of me having food to throw out, if it's suitable then I feed it to the birds. Things like bones I render down for stock which leaves them clean so they don't rot. Anything else goes in the compost.

Even meat a few inches down in the compost you can't smell it. The worms eat it clean really quickly - even if it's something really quite big like a neighbour's cat.

Can't birds and cats eat fish? Seams a terrible waste putting good food into a bin where it will get stinky - but if you have to, just wrap it in an old bread bag or something. A lot of things come in plastic bags or cling film you have to throw away anyway, so it's not like you need to spend any money.

And as I said before, I'm pretty sure they'd smell pretty bad after one week - I'm not sure the additional time would make a lot of difference in hot weather because they'd be pretty much eaten clean after two.

You know, rubbish collection and land fill is a very recent thing. Just a few generations ago, absolutely everything was recycled in one way or another. Ancient landfill comprises mostly broken pottery and old bones, all of which is pretty harmless. Stones and bones have been in the ground since long before mankind walked the earth.

But in order for them to refund you in the first place they will probably have to overcharge everyone in order for their books to balance. I would rather they did not charge so much in the first place.