Sir - Much of our food nowadays is packaged in cartons and they should be an important part of any recycling scheme.

Unfortunately, the Oxford scheme doesn't appear to be much help, because it lists clearly among the items which cannot be recycled "food/drink cartons". Yet, you can recycle other card and cardboard, and there is even a confusing picture of a cornflakes carton, apparently to make you think about it.

I checked in the Oxford Dictionary. A carton is a light box or container, especially one made of cardboard (from the French word 'carton' which means cardboard). I telephoned the helpline. For them, a carton is a food or drink container which is NOT made only of cardboard, or one which is 'messy'.

I hope everybody understands this, or the scheme is not going to work. From what I have seen in people's front gardens, they do not understand it, and many of them risk being heavily fined for "environmental crime". What is worse, there are already signs of incorrectly sorted rubbish just being left to accumulate and deteriorate.

Roger Moreton, Oxford