WITH regards to garden waste recycling: the cost of having a brown garden waste bin from Oxford City Council has risen this year to £39.

When we used the green bags, they were emptied for free, but I appreciate that with the health and safety issue as it is today, there is less chance of recycling while sustaining an injury such as a back injury by using wheelie bins.

I understand that the bins are only on loan to us, so we are actually paying to have our garden waste collected, which I may add is only once a fortnight. We are paying for six months’ collection only and if you stop and think, the gardening season being only six months or thereabouts, we are probably only putting our brown bins out a third of the year.

In the late autumn, and through the winter, there appear to be only a few bins put out and it seems a waste of money to send a lorry and crew out all year round. I have been told that garden waste collection is still free in Cherwell and west Oxon.

MICHAEL CLARKE, Lewell Avenue, Old Marston