WHAT a perverse world we live in.

You report on plans by Cheshire East Council to ‘introduce a food waste collection’ service in the borough at a cost ‘in the region of £16 million’.

I am astonished at the sheer amount of perfectly good food we are throwing away estimated at £13 billion or £470 per household in the UK in 2015.

This, at a time when we have people in one of the wealthiest countries in the world going hungry and, braving the stigma of dependency, resorting to food banks the existence of which is an indictment of our incapacity as a society to care for one another.

Many of these desperate people are in work, their meagre earnings being subsidised by taxpayers, who, in turn, are subsidising the profitability of corporate businesses who, in their turn, are failing to invest in the productivity vitally needed to raise levels of remuneration.

I am also astonished by a lack of imagination which could cut costs in an age that suffers austerity.

Most unavoidable food waste can be composted and our borough is replete with homes with generous gardens that can accommodate compost bins.

Along with most garden waste compost provides free and environmentally friendly fertiliser. Why not provide free compost bins as well as kitchen caddies?

Paul Thomson East Cheshire