In reply to Ken Jones, who suggests that sceptics of Jean Fooks's handling of the new waste collection in Oxford should admit they were wrong (Oxford Mail, June 16), may I firmly express my revulsion at the whole scheme?

To start with, it was not Mrs Fooks's idea. Liverpool and Cambridgeshire, to my knowledge, have had this sort of scheme for three years.

The cost of new collection trucks and the thousands of hideous plastic boxes which, often with their contents overflowing, decorate the streets of East Oxford, has not been disclosed to the public who appear to think these items are 'gifts' from the council.

The waste collection in Oxford was one of the few truly efficient branches of council work.

Redbridge waste dump is efficiently run and has more diverse recycling containers than even Mrs Fooks could provide households with boxes for.

Those people paying for Mrs Fooks's wondrous works have no idea where the rubbish they carefully sort out each week goes to be recycled. Nor do we know into what it is recycled.

As one of the pensioners of Oxford, I was brought up to waste nothing, turn off a light when leaving the room, mend what could be mended, never leave a tap dripping, re-use just about everything, walk or cycle to work or shops and "No, Daddy won't drive you to school/your friend's house - it would be a waste of petrol".

Now we all have waste thrust upon us in the form of horrendous packaging, huge newspapers, a need for burglar lights/CCTV cameras, traffic idling with fumes emitting while roads are constantly being dug up, standby buttons dribbling electricity on equipment used in the home of office when an on/off switch would surely do the same job.

If you print this letter, the copy of the Oxford Mail, once read, will be used as a table cloth for the cat's food bowl, to keep the kitchen floor clean or some other purpose before it is put into the green box. Old ways die hard.

P St Clair Argyle Street Iffley Fields Oxford