On June 19, I saw the dustman lift my dustbin lid, gawp inside and see it was only half full. He then threw the lid down on my step, not replacing it, and walked off, leaving my bin unemptied. I took very little notice as I assumed it was because I had not filled it.

On June 26, the dustman did not bring the wheelie-bin up my driveway. He just took next door's rubbish and went off again, making absolutely no attempt to check mine. This made me even more puzzled at these strange actions so I wrote a letter to the depot in Upper Hollingdean Road, Brighton, addressed to the manager.

No one there had the courtesy to reply by letter or phone with the explanation I had requested. At this point, I was forced to telephone

the yard where, as I expected, there was no manager available to talk with. A young lady said she would get the manager to call me that afternoon, June 27.

Then she said my rubbish had not been collected because it had not been in a black plastic bag. I asked what she meant, as we have the correct bin. I was completely baffled by now as she continued about discarded hypodermic needles.

This made me really cross, as a 72-year-old pensioner. She said: "Which is safer - to tip our bins straight into the adjacent wheelie-bin or grab a plastic bag where, in certain parts of Brighton, a needle could be sticking out?"

No one called me back that afternoon, as expected. I wrote another letter, to the director this time, on June 29 and still have not had a word from him. On July 3, my bin was ignored again completely. By not looking and checking, how did the dustman know there were no plastic bags inside my bin?

I have not been asked to use these bags and now I am told I have to buy them. I have a proper galvanised dustbin which I and all the other dustmen have been happy to use here for 42 years.

Who gave these people the authority to stop my collections for three weeks without so much as a letter or courtesy call to ask me to change? There was not a word from the depot.

This is disgraceful and not a way to run a firm, especially when it has only just taken over the refuse contract. How can anyone be expected to trust it? Each lot gets worse.

-Gerald Spicer, North Road, Portslade