We must face facts, there are problems with the new recycling scheme.

Only today an article appeared in the news section of this site about residents being frustrated at delays in their bin collections.

With black bins emptied only every two weeks and collections failing to take place rubbish is building up in some parts of Wycombe in a way not seen since the winter of discontent in 1978-79.

I fear money has been ploughed into giving us a menagerie of multicoloured bins rather than actually emptying the black bins every week.

Recycling is starting to blight society in the 2000's in a similar way that political correctness did in the late 1980's.

Disposing of rubbish should be a quick and easy process.

The new recycling scheme is no more than a long goodbye process to our waste. Some may want a drawn out and tactile relationship with their unwanted items before parting with them but not me.

Another flaw in the new recycling scheme is that it's not possible to check every bin to see what's inside and I have heard of residents putting black bin waste in the recycling bins. I would never do this myself.

The other week yours truly was chatting with a friend and we started talking about if it would be possible to make better use of the black bin. The answer turned out to be a resounding yes.

Could you get two weeks of waste in a single black bin without using the recycling bins? Well, the problem is one based around volumetric efficiency of the waste placed in the bin.

After carrying out a quick analysis of my waste my good self concluded there are two main types of waste. That which will go smelly in the next two weeks and that which won't. My friend now has two dust bags for each category of waste.

Of course the non-smelly waste can be kept for literally months before needing to be dumped or can even be taken to the tip every month or so.

Every week the bags of potentially smelly stuff can go in the bin however the non-smelly waste will be used to fill up the remaining space left in the bin.

All too often people throw empty cardboard boxes, drink tins and the like into their bin. This means that to a certain extent a significant volume of the bin is taken up with air.

Suppose every item of rubbish was crushed to make it take up less space?

To make it easier to crush my friends waste went into carrier bags before going in the bin. A tied down carrier bag is a manageable size to handle.

Yesterday my friend invited me round to their house to have a go at crushing their rubbish.

First I tried standing on it, then sitting on it. For once my considerable weight was being put to good use. However yours truly thought it should be possible to crush it even more.

After a short brainstorming session my friend and I came up with a good idea.

We took a part-crushed carrier bag and placed it on my friends driveway then placed a stout, wide five foot long plank with one end on the bag and the other on the driveway.

As my trusty motor rolled down the drive the front wheel rolled up the plank right to the end so it was directly over the bag. The small bag of rubbish was as flat as a pancake!

I should point out that it helps if you make a small tear in the bag to let the air out otherwise the bag may rupture and spill its contents when being crushed. As we found out ourselves....

I would not advise that you use such extreme methods to crush your waste but if you can crush cardboard boxes and tins it will all help.

There may be rules around what goes into each bin but there are no limits imposed on the weight of the bins so we can only to assume that its fair game as to how much we can actually get in each black bin.

It would be preferable to have weekly bin collections back but with my new approach to the black bin my friend can now easily get two weeks of rubbish in just one black bin. However the bin may be a little heavier than usual and a tad smelly too!

Perhaps you have some other hints and tips to getting the most from you black bin that you would like to share with us?

What do you think?

*My next exciting and enthralling blog will be published on Tuesday evening around 8pm.