In reply to city councillor John Tanner (Oxford Mail, May 29), residents in Oxford Road, Littlemore, are just as much for recycling as residents in Kidlington.

The fault is in the city-wide scheme, its implementation and those who collect the recycling - if it's not in the specific recycling container, they will not take it.

Surely, if the resident has collected a recyclable, the collectors should take it and not use the excuse it's not in the specified container?

If garden waste isn't in a green bag, they won't take it.

If there is too much recycling and the resident cannot get it all in one container and uses an older type of bin, they will not remove it, using the excuse that "it is too heavy".

This has happened to me several times.

Some might argue that I could take the excess to the Redbridge recycling centre.

My counter argument is - more vehicles on the road increase the city's carbon footprint.

The council produces leaflets telling us what we should do, using valuable recycled resources that could be used on something else, such as books for children.

I have just returned from Redbridge where, in 10 minutes, I saw more than 30 cars, vans and trailers.

Over a day, this adds up to an average of 3,240 trips on Oxford roads to one centre! And how many recycling centres do we have in Oxford - three?

And I thought the idea was to save the planet.

Why should the council tax payer have to do this? Am I not already paying for this "service".

Mr Tanner says he wants a simpler recycling system.

Surely a better idea would be for all households to carry on recycling, by putting out glass, plastics, paper and cardboard into larger bins than are presently provided.

The collectors could then take all items to a central point, where a dedicated team could sort them.

If a particular type of plastic cannot be recycled, then it is binned or, even better, used as an energy source to fire a power station, the like of which has just been built near Heathrow Airport at Colnbrook.

This way, we would increase the amount of recycling in Oxford to meet Government targets, reduce traffic travelling to the recycling centres, and decrease the number of unemployed people.

WAYNE RUSHEN Oxford Road Littlemore Oxford