Sir - On Friday, I put my blue and green recycling boxes out, having diligently separated envelopes from other paper, tins from glass etc. I was therefore amazed, nay astonished, to see the man doing the collection, tip the contents of both boxes into one communal box! So can someone in the recycling department please explain why we go to such pains to separate our recyclables when in the end they are all collected together? If I decided not to recycle things in the right box the authorities would be rushing in with a fine.

Pat Whitehouse, Oxford