Does anyone else play the wheelie bin game? I'm sure I can't be the only person who does. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll explain the rules.

The object of the game is to pack as much rubbish as you possibly can in a receptacle cunningly designed to be half the size needed for its purpose. It requires brute force combined with speed as you are competing against the clock, or rather the bin wagon you've just heard at the bottom of your road - which is why the person most awake early in the morning always goes first. A typical game in our household goes like this.

Player One jumps out of bed, snatches up his dressing gown, shouts 'Bins!' and dashes downstairs. Extra skill points are awarded here if Player One is actually wearing the dressing gown by the time he stumbles outside onto his drive.

Player Two, if she's clever, deliberately misses her turn.

Player One, with no time to waste, calculates the ratio of grey to brown bins along the road to determine which week it is. In this example, the greys and general waste have it. He then struggles to drag and squeeze a heavy and bulging grey wheelie bin past his car to the front of the drive before running back into the house.

Player Two is woken by her children proffering their bedroom wastepaper bins like human versions of Pavlov's dogs. She gets up and, after much stretching and yawning, begins a zombielike search for pedal bins and waste baskets.

Player One emerges from the kitchen carrying a torn and leaking black bag. Aware that the bin wagon is chomping ever closer, he proceeds to push, press, and pummel the bag under an already dangerously angled lid. When finished, Player One returns inside to hide.

It's now the turn of the beastly bin wagon who arrives with a gnashing of teeth looking for its fortnightly offering. It devours the contents of the wheelie bin before munching on its way. Helpful acolytes leave the empty container three houses up the road.

Player One surfaces to wheel the empty bin back to its rightful home, just as a fully laden Player Two arrives late and proceeds to load the bin - much to the chagrin of Player One.

Game ends.

Fortnightly collections, alternating each week between recyclables and general household rubbish, appear to be the norm these days. During my childhood years, 'going green' meant nothing more than David Banner turning into the Incredible Hulk whilst wearing surprisingly stretchy jeans. Now, 'going green' means driving to your nearest recycling centre in your 4x4 to offload plastic containers that will be shipped to China before returning as Kiddie Meal toys. Sometimes it's tempting to cut out the middleman and hand small children an empty lemonade bottle claiming, 'This is what Captain Hook trapped Tinkerbell in in Peter Pan'. I'm sure enough of them wash up in Neverland anyway.

I must confess, the Barley family have been recycling for some time now, and we welcomed the onset of doorstep collections. But we didn't anticipate the profusion of coloured plastic it would generate. For example, we had a grey wheelie bin for general waste, a brown one for garden rubbish and cardboard, a smaller blue bin for tins and glass bottles, and a black one for paper. They were all accompanied by a multi-coloured pamphlet that explained what, when, and how we should recycle, but it was written in terms you needed a Ph.D to understand. Luckily I'd got a Ph.D. but I still had to rely on my wife to work out the details.

'The council is giving away free composters,' said Gillian flicking through yet another leaflet on recycling. I was surprised at her interest, until I saw it was designed like a catalogue, with catwalk composters paraded in all shapes, sizes and colours. What woman could resist?

'Oh,' was my considered reply.

'I think we should get one,' said Gillian. My male logic gene sparked into action.

'Where would it go?'

'In the back garden. There's plenty of space next to the shed.'

'What would we put in it?'

'It says here in the instructions we can put in grass cuttings, leaves, small twigs and vegetable waste from our kitchen.'

'So you want us to traipse all the way to the bottom of our garden after every meal clutching handfuls of potato peelings?'

'No, silly. They give you a small lidded bucket to put them in. When it's full, you take it out and empty it into the composter.'

'And how long would it take to become compost?'

Gillian peered at her handy guide. 'About half a year. Although we're supposed to turn it a few times with a garden fork, but it says that after six months we'll have a natural fertiliser to use on the flower beds. Sounds like fun. Shall we have a go?'

'Personally, I think it would be a lot of hassle and duplication. Besides, we already recycle garden cuttings in the brown bin and we have a waste disposal unit for leftover food.'

'Well I think we should have one.'

In marriage you've got to pick your battles, so in the absence of any real objection I concurred. 'Okay. Go ahead, but it's your composter. Other than grass cuttings from my lawns, I'm not getting involved.'

Quick to close the sale, Gillian snapped, 'Deal!' before tapping the leaflet and adding, 'We'll have this aquamarine composter. It comes with a really cute matching strappy bucket.' She was always good at coordinating.

Two years on, our composter does a sterling job of fertilising the ground it sits on and is host to a preposterously prosperous colony of worms; happy in their undisturbed home. Ironically the lidded bucket's strappy handle broke on one of the few occasions my wife took it outside. It's now in a landfill somewhere. To be honest we were both pleased when it happened, even though nothing was said. In sixteen years of marriage you learn not to use the words, 'I told you so,' unless it's in relation to gossip. The only disappointed parties in our wasted opportunity were the flies and wasps that had gathered religiously in our kitchen each day. No doubt praying for 'The Miracle of the Lifting Lid' and subsequent safe passage to the hallowed land of putrefied cabbage, blackened banana skins and festering apple cores. I'm not surprised Gillian hated emptying it. Even the Health and Safety said it was a rotten job.

When we were up to speed with our colourful recycling regime, I was amazed at the amount of refuse that could be re-used in some shape or form. For the first time ever, our grey bin looked half empty at collection time each week. But my amazement turned to confusion when the council shifted to fortnightly pickups and suddenly two halves made up more than a whole. I struggled to explain our surplus of rubbish until I sat down and thought about it clearly.

If you're like us, you probably have a lot of guests. Relatives who visit for Christmas, or birthdays, or other special occasions. Friends who come to dinner, or to barbecues, or to stay for the weekend. School friends who arrive for tea or to play with our kids. And all the one-off guests who pop round for a coffee and to ask when I'm going get a real job. I tell them I have a real job - as a full time caterer, but without the staff or any sign of a decent tip.

Which means that the Barleys singlehandedly keep the affluent bin liner manufacturers from being down in the dumps, unlike their bags. And our grey bin is always half full as our fortnightly social calendar begins its new cycle.

So when the council claim a standard wheelie bin is adequate for a family of four, I say, 'Four what? Four "Billy No-Mates" who are forced to grow their own food, and shun society in order never to eat or drink anything that arrives in a packet or a bottle?'

I'd like to point out that I've got nothing against hermits as such...so long as they keep to themselves.

When an Environmental Services representative from the North Herts District Council was being interviewed on the local radio, he said '...a full wheelie bin is a sign of a household that isn't recycling enough.'

He was talking rubbish.

As a typical family - concerned about our environment, but prone to the odd craving for fast food - we buy into this whole recycling concept as much as the next middle class household with a privileged lifestyle. In fact our recycling habits don't stop at the stuff the council collects. We recycle plastic, clothes, shoes, and even batteries - when rechargeable ones won't suffice. When I prune our trees and bushes, the smaller branches are shredded and scattered as wood chips over our borders whilst the larger boughs are cut into logs to feed our wood burner. The coloured tops off our milk bottles - rejected by our council as being 'the wrong type of plastic' - are rinsed and turned into art by my wife's class at school. Clothes that are too ragged for charity shops become dusters and decorating cloths. Our old computers go to old folk's homes where they both operate at the same sedate pace. Empty printer cartridges get re-filled and re-used in our house and even our kitchen and loo roll is recycled. Before we get it, not after. Finally, our unwanted ornaments, pictures, electrical goods, books, cds, dvds, computer games and toys all go up into the attic ready for the car boot sale we promise we'll do one day.

So in answer to Mister Council Man on the radio: I do care about the environment, I do recycle far more than you expect, and I do pay extortionate amounts in my council tax for so-called 'environmental waste services', but I still have a surplus of social refuse at the end of each fortnight.

Therefore, please Mister Council Man, may I have a replacement grey wheelie bin in a size large enough not to bulge like a clubbers' midriff on Ladies Night?

Or failing that...what other tips do you have for me?