HOUSEHOLDERS all over north Wiltshire may well be extremely annoyed to discover that they are to be given a wheelie bin within the next two years, and told that any rubbish they cannot fit into it will be left behind by the binmen.

This is not some whim of North Wiltshire District Council, designed to annoy its taxpayers, but an attempt to stay on course with recycling targets set by the Government.

It needs to recycle ten per cent of the 61,000 tonnes of rubbish produced by the county within three years, and 18 per cent within four years.

At the minute it manages to recycle just 8.6 per cent.

The problem at present is that we are just too lazy. The binmen will cart away virtually any domestic rubbish we manage to cram into a black sack. This is having a real impact on the amount of landfill sites needed to dump it all.

We really will need to be greener in our approach and the council is having to take steps to make sure we are.

The only problem is that it will take two years to introduce wheelie bins across the district, and even longer to start kerbside collections of recyclable material.

If the council really wants us to be greener, it should be keener on getting us started.

Changing people's habits will take time and the quicker we are faced with the reality of filling one wheelie bin and recycling the rest of our rubbish the better.