THE following points are made in reply to Graham Atkinson's letter in last week's Bury Times, regarding his department and council edict that the grey bin is for disposal of household waste and not garden waste only.

Landfilling biodegradable waste such as grass cuttings can contribute to environmental problems resulting in climate change.

The European Landfill Directive has set limits on the amounts of biodegradable municipal waste that local authorities across England can dispose of in landfill sites.

These limits equate to the following percentage of the biodegradable municipal waste produced in 1995: 2010 - 75 per cent; 2013 - 50 per cent; 2020 - 35 per cent.

As you can see there is not a ban on biodegradable municipal waste going to landfill sites. Composting both at home and use of the council's brown bin collections have a key role to play in the UK to meet this target.

My family is fully committed to the above environmental strategy. Unfortunately there is a presumption made by the council that brown bin collection every two weeks for each household suffices for removal of garden waste in Bury.

This is not the case in our garden, which generates large volumes of grass cuttings and leaves during the year. There are extremely bulky and only a small percentage can be used for home composting.

Effectively 70 per cent of my biodegradable garden waste is being collected and composted through the council's brown bin system which was not the case in 1995.

The council's policy to ban the remaining 30 per cent of our biodegradable garden waste from the grey bin collection service, will result in having to make a weekly car journey to the local tip to dispose of excess grass cuttings etc.

This is totally unreasonable and is based purely on financial costs associated with waste disposal.

It is also environmentally unfriendly, and will contribute negatively to my family's carbon footprint.

We are willing to purchase an extra brown bin to assist the council in achieving the limits imposed by the European Landfill Directive on biodegradable municipal waste, does the council have a second bin strategy?

Don't be surprised if you find grass cuttings in my grey bin this week.

Bruce Birtwistle, Brandlesholme Road, Bury