I now have three different coloured wheelie bins, a brown food bin, a silver kitchen caddy, the old green kitchen caddy and my green glass recycling box. What should I do with them all?

You can pay to use the green wheelie bin (£35 per year). Or you can dispose of it and the green glass box. (Or for a fee of £35 we can dispose of it for you).

Why are you now charging to recycle my garden waste?

It means we can claim not to have increased your council tax. But we still get money from you for a council service (waste disposal).

Will my brown food bin attract vermin?

Yes. Even if you lock it, they can smell it. But thankfully you’d have to pay for pest control to deal with that. We only create the problems, not solve them.

If I don’t subscribe to the garden waste service, do I get a reduction in my council tax bill because I’m using my car and petrol to take it to the tip?

Not a chance. Think we were born yesterday?

Can I just say that the neighbourhood looks ugly now? A bit like a slum with bins out for collection or in full view of all other neighbours/passers by?

Well… small price to pay for doing the right thing…

Why have you given me a new kitchen caddy? My old one is still like new?

No comment.

Is someone somewhere making an indescribably and unwholesomely large profit by implementing these services? Perhaps in making and then disposing of perfectly good bins?

Ahem… of course not. What a cynical view of things.

If I accidentally out the wrong thing in the wrong bin, will you collect it anyway?

Nope. We’ll punish you (and make you very conspicuous in your neighbourhood by not emptying it – neglect and reject) and leave it there for potentially another fortnight.

Will all this change in another five or six years? Chucking away our ‘old’ new bins and being issued with more new bins?

Who can say? Is that it? I’d like to go home now. It is 4.30 you know…

You can go. I have all the answers I need.