The council's proposal to scrap half its refuse collections will be a serious hazard to health.

It is bad enough having recycling collected only every other week, but ordinary refuse includes things which rot or attract vermin.

Expecting residents to store such material for more than a week is highly irresponsible.

As we have discovered with the fortnightly recycling collections, it is very easy to miss a fortnightly collection through forgetting whether it's a collection week or not.

If you miss a collection for that reason, or simply being away on collection day, you can end up having a whole month's worth of refuse to store.

Quite apart from the hygiene issue, where exactly is this refuse to be kept?

Tim Lidbetter Burton Road Kingston