RECYCLING DESTROYS MARRIAGES' - I'll wager my biggest green bin that it won't be long before that headline appears in the paper.

The way things are going I might just make the front pages myself, as the first woman in the country to file for divorce, citing the other party' as a green recycling bin.' Or, if I'm completely honest, one large green bin, one small, one green bag and one blue bag. These are provided by our local authority for us responsible, green-minded households to dispose of all manner of rubbish, from garden cuttings, to plastic milk containers and, most recently, cardboard.

It's all well and good. We all - apart from people who drive tank-like 4x4s - want to save the planet.

Only families being what they are, not everyone in every household is prepared to go the extra mile - or even the first mile - to do that.

I'm recycling everything I possibly can - the insides of bottles, tins, toilet rolls, milk cartons, tissue boxes, newspapers. I'm really striving to stop this area turning into the Kalahari. I am making an effort to help polar bears on remote ice caps. What I'm doing is even going to benefit filthy rich hoteliers in posh French ski resorts, desperately hoping the snow doesn't melt.

But above all, I want to help my children and their children. I don't like to think of them living in the England of the future, with a climate like that of Death Valley.

But getting other members of the family to follow suit is like persuading kids to eat sprouts.

WHO PUT THAT IN THE WASTE BIN?' - I screech at least once every ten minutes, in a tone of voice that would send a seriously disturbed serial killer running to his mother.

THAT CAN BE RECYCLED!' I continue, fishing the loo roll tube out of the bathroom bin, ripping it down one side, stamping on it to flatten it, then marching outside to stuff it into the cardboard recycling bag.

The children are quaking in their boots. Does this go in the recycling bin, mummy?' they will ask nervously.

My husband isn't as keen to please. That can't go in, they won't want that,' he says, with a certain glint of glee in his eyes, as he comes across something that is on the list of items that the council won't collect. That will have to go in the bin.' There are so many grey areas - yoghurt cartons can't go in the plastic bin, neither can other plastic' (other than milk cartons), and writing paper can't go in the paper bin.

My mum is the worst recycler in the UK. I haven't got the time,' she told me, as I angrily confronted her about yet another aluminium can casually thrown out with the rubbish.

She's right - recycling is time consuming. Washing out bottles, flattening them, bundling up cardboardit is far easier to chuck it all away in the same bin.

But it is worth it, to save the planet. Family breakdowns - and they could run into thousands - are just an unfortunate side-effect.