Here's what we should expect of our Green politicians

Recognise that Sepa isn’t delivering the service that was originally expected of it in 1996. Water quality has deteriorated, and around 20% of Scotland’s waste is now handled by illegal operators. Sepa needs to be reduced to a rump (equivalent to the former HMIPI and the Hazardous Waste Unit); its waste regulatory powers transferred to the unitary councils; and the former river purification boards reinstated. Sepa’s role should solely be one of performance-auditing.

Accept that Keep Scotland Beautiful seems incapable of influencing the public’s attitude to dropping litter despite employing six times the staff it had four decades ago. Redeploy most of its staff among the councils to deliver local litter awareness strategies and retain the rump for a monitoring role.

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Reinvigorate the Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse to ensure the public is fully aware of their entitlement to know when their local environs are due to be cleaned. Have council tax bills detail the zone in which the home has been allocated for street cleaning services and how much time the council has to reinstate it when it gets filthy.

Stop lumping fly-tipping in with the litter problem. These are two separate issues and need completely different approaches. If the councils had sole responsibility for regulating fly-tipping, the current arguments over who is responsible would disappear overnight.

Introduce legislation that requires any trader who charges for a carrier bag to display a list on their premises of the "good causes" that they donate the net proceeds to. Too many of the smaller traders are keeping the charge as extra income.

Accept that despite a staff of 250 and spending a fortune on external consultants, Zero Waste Scotland has been unable to make any improvement on Scotland’s waste recycling performances since the Scottish Government meddled with the council’s ring-fenced funding in 2008. Redeploy most of the staff among the councils, and set up regular liaison meetings with (S)ESA, the organisation that represents the private sector waste interests, and the council officers nominated to provide Cosla with professional advice on environmental and waste management issues. This would ensure the advice offered to the politicians was more objective than apparently currently happens.

Shelve the DRS and accept we need to build on and expand the existing established infrastructure for kerbside collections. Develop an energy-from-waste strategy to capture the recyclate that’s currently going to landfill.

If implemented, the foregoing would create many sustainable, "green" jobs. That’s what the electorate expects of the Green Party.

John Crawford, Preston.

Gaelic road signs are dangerous

I HAVE just spent a very pleasant few days in Inverness-shire and Ross-shire. What astonished me is the nonsense, expense and danger of having Gaelic on road signs. My concern is for visitors to the Highlands, especially foreign visitors who would find this completely confusing and highly dangerous.

I knew roughly where I was going and but when having to read road signs was thrown by Gaelic taking preference over English: it necessitates slowing down and taking time to decipher where to go. Who are these signs for? Locals who are Gaelic speakers, who I am sure are few and far between, would not need road signs as they know where they are going. Road signs are for visitors and Gaelic inclusion is completely unnecessary. This is purely political point-scoring, no other reason and another complete waste of money by this spendthrift nationalist regime.

My advice to Highland Council: abandon dangerous Gaelic on road signs, they must cause accidents.

Douglas Cowe, Newmachar.

Are Gaelic road signs confusing? (Image: Newsquest)

Oh no, it's that time again

IT’S that time of year again. When the sun sinks down of an evening and casts a long shadow. And somewhere, in the back of my mind, Ennio Morricone’s haunting theme to “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” begins to play.

Deedle deedle dee! Wah wah wah.

It’s that time of year when my best friend, a middle-aged man who won’t set foot in a kitchen, who likes his dinner cooked for him by his good lady, who would rather call in a curry than microwave a ready meal, reverts to a far more primal version of himself.

It’s that time of year when Jekyll becomes Hyde, when my best friend dumps tailored trousers and business shirts for a pair of denims, a sauce-stained T-shirt, and a checked overshirt. Hanging below his waist is a genuine leather carpenter’s apron which holsters his firearms: matches, lighter fluid, skewers and what looks like an instrument of torture, but I am assured is a barrel pit sausage hanger.

You’ve guessed it. It’s barbecue season. When men across the western world decide the womenfolk in their lives need to take a seat. This is real cooking, and only real men can handle it. Step aside, sister!

Every year, for the last 20 or so, my friend turns all macho at the merest hint of summer sunshine and over these years I have learned some lessons.

The first time I was invited for a barbecue with him, I learned that I wasn’t really going to stand in a long line. I was actually going for what he calls (all manly-like) “a ’cue.”

The following year I learned that turning up to one of his ’cues with some supermarket burgers was enough to send him apoplectic. Why would I sully my palate when he was offering minced beef and pork with parsley, parmesan and sourdough breadcrumbs?

The biggest faux pas of all though, was appearing with a shop-bought ready-mixed barbecue rub and suggest he might use it. At that point the grillmaster-in-chief’s eyes narrowed, an ugly twisted expression crept across his face, his hand twitched towards his holster and Morricone’s music reverberated in my brain.

Deedle deedle dee! Wah wah wah.

The hand shot down and he pulled a piece on me. A piece of carefully folded greaseproof paper which he shook at me slowly as he drawled menacingly, “Now why the hell would I want that when I can use my own personally, carefully curated blend of ’erbs and spices including dark brown sugar, granulated garlic, salt, onion powder, smoked paprika, dry mustard, and a soupcon of allspice?”

Nowadays I just ask the cowboy cook what he would like me to bring, and he sighs all wearily and westernly: “Beers. And plenny of ‘em!”

It’s that time of year again, when I begin to long for shortening nights and colder days. The kind of day when Dr Jekyll phones and asks: “Fancy the pub for a pint and a bag of tattie crisps?”

Gordon Fisher, Stewarton.