WE are told all the time that we have to be more conscious of the need to preserve raw materials and maximise recycling.

Depending where you live households now have multiple wheelie bins and boxes so different types of waste can be separated.

The reason is that we just cannot any longer bury our rubbish in the ground or dump it at sea without running the risk of causing pollution that will literally kill future generations.

Although there has been lots of talk about cutting down on excess packaging every trip to the supermarket (with my own multi-used shopping bags!) still results in lots of plastic trays, and wrapping having to be removed and binned.

And no matter how many wheelie bins you have (three in my case) it is still necessary to make at least one trip a week to the yard full of fancy skips that is our nearest ‘household waste recycling centre.’ I’m not alone in this either because it seems that whatever day and time you drive to the place there are a fair number of people ditching everything from settees to clothes, bushes and all kinds of garden refuse, rubble, and stuff from the attic.

All of this leaves me baffled at the priorities of Lancashire County Council in lining up three East Lancashire recycling centres, in Colne, Bacup and Great Harwood, for closure in the name of saving money.

Of course the county has to trim a lot of budgets to balance the books because of cuts imposed by the government to try to help the country out of recession.

But this is one area where the public cannot tighten their belts.

We can sort out different types of rubbish and make more use of composting but until there are drastic changes in the way our consumer society operates the humble householder cannot reduce the mountain of refuse that is produced.

Sadly many people are too selfish and, well let’s not mince words, ignorant to take on the extra cost of say driving the extra miles from, say Colne, into Burnley to do the right thing.

They will simply go a couple of miles into the beautiful rural lanes around the town and dump their garbage at the roadside.

The extra costs then faced by the county council in carting it away will quickly offset the supposed saving of closing Colne recycling centre.

It’s hard to understand why an organisation as large as Lancashire County Council doesn’t recognise the illogicality of what they plan to do.