There isn't a right way to collect household waste; it depends on the money available, what happens to it after collection and what the law requires. It will vary from area to area.

It costs councils at least £125 a household to empty the bins and this is surprisingly cheap at £2.50 a week; fish and chips for one, or 36p a day, and they provide the bins and pay to get rid of it as well. It's good value.

It includes the cost of collecting, that is the wagons and the operatives, the gate fee at the landfill site, the landfill tax, and the transport. The cost of sorting recycling is additional. By 2010 the landfill tax will have risen from £24 today to £48 per tonne. With an incinerator there is no landfill tax, but it costs tens of millions to build so either way it all adds up to an expensive do.

European rules require us to reduce landfill to 35 per cent of the 1995 level by 2020; any excess will cost £150 per tonne more. Also our rubbish is rising by three per cent a year so it will double in less than 20 years.

It's going to be expensive and it is elsewhere. French waste is collected daily in large cities, and weekly elsewhere for about £200 a year. German unsorted waste bins costs £65 for a weekly collection, with a lower £23 cost for each of up to five recycling bins. Fines are common.

Ireland has an annual charge, about £160, depending on the weight with fines for putting waste in the wrong bin. Japanese waste must be sorted for burning and drink cartons have to be washed, opened and tied flat! Including lighting and street cleaning it costs £750 a year. Californians have always paid for collections and it is a minimum of £150 for a small rubbish bin and two recycling containers.

Other countries recycle more because they pay to have the unsorted waste collected so there is an incentive. In the UK leaving it to the goodwill of the householder doesn't work - we recycle the least of all developed nations.

Alternate weekly collections are unnecessary as they are only a method of avoiding direct payment. It would be preferable in an urban area to have the recyclables collected weekly in a box and sorted at the kerbside without cost, with a similar weekly collection of the waste bin, but that would be weighed and we would get a bill. With this system our recycling rate would be over 50 per cent and we would meet all the targets and reduce the amount of carbon produced.

Unfortunately Bradford's waste service is currently up for tender by large companies, so I suspect that the politicians have ducked the issue of paying for unsorted waste. However, after much fuss, we will all be doing it in ten years' time.