RE ‘Ribble Valley Council gets £750,000 reward for keeping weekly bin collections’ (LT, November 23) – this is a complete waste of money. The vast majority of residents in Ribble Valley and Lancashire already receive a weekly collection of rubbish, ie one week recycled waste is collected, the next week the non-recyclable waste is collected.

Hardly any council in the country has a ‘fortnightly collection’.

The ‘weekly’ collection of waste as described by Local Governemnt Secretary Eric Pickles is a complete con.

In Blackburn with Darwen, there are three waste collections in a fortnight!

The burgundy bin (for non-recyclables) is collected weekly. The grey bin (for recyclables) is collected fortnightly.

If Mr Pickles wants to throw money around then he should give it to councils’ cleansing departments for litter-pickers and environmental crime officers – folk who actually tackle the problems of fly-tipping, accumulations of rubbish and littering.

These posts have been increasingly cut back by councils as a direct result of the cuts imposed by Mr Pickles’s government.

Coun Dave Smith, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council.