When living things die they have a habit of disappearing and being absorbed back into the system for re-use as long as they decay in the presence of oxygen.

It doesn't matter whether it is dead bodies, potato peelings, cut flowers, tea bags or toilet roll middles, after a few months they will all have broken down.

It's only when covered by sediment in the sea, or frozen on land or in soggy conditions that organic matter eventually becomes coal, oil, gas or peat.

All dead waste contains carbon and it joins with the oxygen in the air to give carbon dioxide. This is reused by plants to grow and then die and the whole carbon cycle will be repeated, and be kept mainly in balance.

It's just a pity that we are importing all the extra fossil fuel-based carbon from a similar cycle that existed over 200 million years ago so that now we have too much CO2 in our atmosphere to keep the climate at the temperature that best suits us.

Reducing forest cover hasn't helped either.

This extra carbon dioxide is causing the climate to overheat so we must be careful about what we do with our green waste. We need to let wood rot and slowly release its carbon, so we should rethink Plot Night.

It's not sensible to buy energy efficient bulbs and turn off lights if on one day in the year we burn as much wood and old furniture we can lay our hands on so pouring CO2 into the atmosphere just like a forest fire.

No organic matter should be buried in a landfill site, and that includes paper and cardboard as well as garden and food waste.

Deep down, without oxygen, it decays to form methane, a powerful climate change gas over 20 times as damaging as carbon dioxide. If it can't be trapped and used as a fuel then we don't want it.

The best place for all green waste and food waste is in domestic gardens, and for the two-thirds of houses that have them this waste should never leave the property.

It should be placed in a home-made compost bin or one of the large plastic ones that the council subsidises. They are almost impossible to fill, as the contents keep rotting down, and there is rarely a smell.

They don't need attention, and after a year or so there will be black, crumbly compost without a tea bag to be seen.

For those in flats and houses without gardens the council should collect food waste, every week, as they did years ago for pig swill.

It can be treated in a digester that produces methane for electricity, and compost which can be given back to householders with gardens as a thank you.

For most of us the green waste motto must be "Keep it at home, don't let it roam!"