SIR – I d like to thank residents who contributed comments to your letters page last week regarding the extension to our recycling service to include cardboard and food waste. If I may I would like, via your column, to provide residents with more

SIR - I'd like to thank residents who contributed comments to your letters page last week regarding the extension to our recycling service to include cardboard and food waste.

If I may I would like, via your column, to provide residents with more information and advice on the new service.

This is a quick 'how to' guide to effectively, safely, cleanly and most importantly, hygienically manage your food waste recycling.

You can still continue to use your brown bin for green garden waste and the NEW cardboard recycling service, however, we would also encourage people to use the food service too.

If you do want to recycle your food, and you want to avoid any potential issues, then please read on.

Good hygiene practices help to avoid any problems:

* Line containers/caddies with a few sheets of newspaper

* Contain food scraps in your caddie as soon as possible and close the lid

* When you transfer food waste to your bin, particularly plate scrapings, make sure they are wrapped in newspaper, and perhaps secured in a cereal packet or something similar

* You may want to line the bottom of your brown bin with newspaper or cardboard

* Empty kitchen caddies and containers into your brown bin regularly

* Make sure you keep your wheelie bin lid tightly closed

* Keep your bin out of direct sunshine in hot weather to avoid heating your waste and increasing smells.

The inclusion of new materials in our service has generated a lot of positive interest in the scheme.

The free caddies we've been providing to interested residents have been very popular, even though the service hasn't even started yet.

More than 10,000 caddies have already been distributed borough-wide, which indicates a possible uptake of almost over 25 per cent of existing brown bin holders so far!

We'll know more once the collections start on October 5.

We are able to accommodate people who live in flats within the scheme too, however, someone must be prepared to take responsibility for the brown bin.

For more information please check out the council's website: www.welhat.gov.uk or call 01707 357000.

I hope that the above information helps residents to ensure that we maximise the take up of our extended recycling services.

Councillor Mark Gilding,

Executive member for environment,

Welwyn Hatfield Council.

n SIR - I write in total astonishment at the reaction to some of our local readers who are too ignorant or too lazy to see what a good idea the new recycling initiative is.

Is making a better future for the next generation by putting our scraps in a caddy lined with newspaper and then tipped into a large bin that has a lid and can be washed simply by hosing it down, too gargantuan a task to perform?

Is waiting for someone else to come and empty said large bin too much to bear?

Really, think about the bigger picture.

Yours in favour of a greener planet. Name and address supplied.