Like so much of the country Scarborough Borough Council has gone onto kerbside collections of recyclables – everyone has been given lovely big bright blue bins – they look so pretty and in keeping scattered across our little moorland village! The list of what you can and cannot put in the bin is very long and complicated, for example you can put Christmas and birthday cards in the bin but not if they have glitter on them, all plastic bottles regardless of type but not yoghurt pots. Never mind, we thought, we've always separated our recyclables and taken them to the big bins at the supermarket. So yesterday with a car load of stuff off we went to stock up only to discover that the big paper and can bins had gone leaving only an empty space and a couple of glass bins. Upon enquiring as to the whereabouts of the bins we are told that the council are expecting more glass to be recycled as more people get into the habit and that paper and tin cans can go in your blue bin. But one big problem with that – you cannot put in envelopes with windows or if they are manila (no mention of other colours though or envelopes stuck together with selotape…) – so where do these go? In your normal bin to go to landfill!! I'm not sure SBC have got the hang of this yet. So does anyone have any sensible suggestions as to what we can do with our weekly small heap of windowed &/or brown envelopes?