I REFER to a very good article (July 26) ‘Food waste ban is costing pig farms and forests dear’.

As a young boy, growing up in the ‘50s and living in a village in Oxfordshire, during the school holidays I would accompany my father to pick up the waste food from two premises in the town, namely the Excelsior Café on the Cowley Road and the Headington chip shop. Sometimes we would go into the colleges to collect three or four large sacks of hard bread and rolls from the college kitchens.

This was taken back to our smallholding where we had two very large pressure cookers. My father had a licence whereby he was instructed to boil the swill for a set time and, when boiled thoroughly, this was fed to the pigs and chickens.

During the foot and mouth crisis of 2001, the duo Tony Blair and Gordon Brown totally mismanaged the situation and, as usual, looked to deflect the blame from themselves. The easy option was waste food management.

I now see large expensive lorries, well-manned, picking up small amounts of waste food at great costs to the ratepayers. A service supplied free of charge years ago by anybody who had pigs or chickens.

The cost of this procedure will never be self-funding but will be subsidised from ever-increased taxes. What does it take to make our politicians see sense and realise that you cannot go on living and wasting valuable resources and not suffer any consequences?

BARRY RENDELL Shilton Road Carterton