Sir — The new waste collection scheme scheduled to start in October 2010 is introduced in the Vale of White Horse District Council's autumn Vale Views as "a more efficient service, which will reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill".

For whom is this new waste collection service more efficient? Residents will be provided with up to five different receptacles including a caddy, wheelie bin and box, into which they will be obliged to sort household and garden waste for collection at both weekly and fortnightly intervals!

There used to be just one dustbin to put out for once-weekly collection — easy to remember and easy to do.

But soon there will be five puttings out, causing hazardous pavement and backyard bin clutter. These wearisome rubbish antics are being imposed to achieve targets set for councils. But have residents been consulted about, or voted on, the changes in waste collection?

Have they been told how the cost to councils in fines for failure to reach recycling targets will be paid for? I suspect that the answer to both these questions is "No". This is because the targets result from the European Union Landfill Directive 1999/31 under which by 2020 about 50 per cent of EU waste must be diverted from landfill. Thus councils are taxed for use of landfill sites.

The present standard rate of landfill tax is £32 per tonne, increasing each year by £8 per tonne. After 2010, the start date of the new waste collection service, if the United Kingdom fails to meet the EU targets, the tax could increase to up to £150 per tonne. And who will pay for this European Union environmental authoritarianism — council taxpayers of course!

Jacqueline Jones, UK Independence Party prospective Parliamentary candidate for the Wantage constituency, Cumnor