THE houses down our road have been issued by the council with those green plastic trays containers in which you are supposed to put glass bottles and jars which will be collected once a fortnight.

It’s all part of the new scheme to encourage recycling. We now get our green and black rubbish bins emptied on alternate weeks.

I’m all in favour of recycling, but what the green trays do is lay bare your drinking habits to the whole world.

Take the dog for a walk when they have been put outside the garden gate and you can see what everybody’s penchant is; wine, lager, beer, spirits.

In some of the trays there were even – shock, horror – jam and coffee jars. Not many, but one or two.

Whole streets and districts are confessing to the occasional imbibing like mass meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The thing is, the small containers make a fortnight’s worth of modest tippling suddenly look as if almost every household has a problem.

Mind you, it’s still fun to look.