We pay you for waste collection - so collect it!

I suppose it was kind of inevitable. After all, it was pantomime season,

writes blogger David Burrows.

Ask any Shrewsbury resident over Christmas: "What do you think of the green waste collection so far?" and you shouldn't really be surprised by the response.

"Rubbish".

Indeed. As in: "I've got a pile of rubbish building up outside my door and now I can't get out of my house."

In recent weeks parts of Shrewsbury have been resembling the cardboard cities that provide beds for the country's homeless.

The reason? Council officials seeming to think we all treat the wonderfully informative leaflets they send out every five minutes as the most crucial documents we could ever receive, and therefore keep them all somewhere closeto hand in case of an amenities-based emergency.

This can be the only explanation for them sending out details about recycling arrangements over the Christmas period in the autumn, and expecting us all to know what they were come December 27.

Of course, with the worry over how to actually pay for Christmas in the middle of a recession at the forefront of their minds, some people forgot and put their waste out, only for it to remain where they left it (unless of course the weather or neighbourhood cats/dogs got their way with it).

We are always being told, these days, to "reduce, reuse, recycle" to stop the planet choking on its own vomit (or more accurately, the vomit we create from what Mother Earth gives us).

But Veolia Environmental Services or, as they were known when I was a kid, the binmen, say that over Christmas they "suspended garden and cardboard waste collection and provided additional refuse collections instead".

The reason? "Many households do produce additional waste at this time of year."

Yes they do - and what is the majority of that waste? Hmm...could it be the cardboard that all the Christmas presents came boxed up in?

So, a simple request for next festive season Mr Veolia. Much like I have to do with my waste before putting it in the appropriate box or bin: Get it sorted.