However, again there is room for criticism as to the way this has been communicated to householders.

On returning home on the 18th September after a few days away, I found a letter dated 10th September amongst my post. This informed me that within the next few weeks I would receive a green wheeled bin. The following day the bins were delivered.

This made nonsense of the paragraph which said that if I did not wish to take part in the scheme I should contact Rother. I had been led to believe that delivery of this part of Rother's waste collection scheme was unlikely to be implemented in the rural areas. So much for communication. I am a Parish Councillor and we at least, usually get forward notification of such things, but not this time.

As a trained horticulturist I do know about composting and already have two 'Rother Rotters' which deal very well with most of our garden and kitchen vegetable waste. The green bin will however be very useful for the hedge prunings, which are substantial, following good growing conditions this year, as last year. It will mean less need for winter bonfires and may therefore result in my personal carbon emissions being less. However, that will surely have to be balanced against collection by a vehicle burning carbon fuel taking them away.

I will also be querying why, if this is a collection of green compostable garden waste, it is not possible to include kitchen waste made up of raw potato peelings and vegetable and salad material. Not that I wish to dispose of these as they rot down very nicely in my own garden compost system but there are people who do not home compost and so will place these materials in their black bins destined for landfill. Has not an opportunity also been missed here for disposal of some grades of waste cardboard? I am intrigued that the sticker accompanying the bin had a longer list of items which can not be recycled than those which can.

So. limited congratulations only, Rother. You still have some way to go towards the zero waste target which Liberal Democrats aspire to.