The recent letter in the Review from Ken Ducker strikes a heavy chord with me. I am one of the church wardens at St John The Baptist church in Ruardean, and we have had the same experience of having the churchyard green waste being contaminated by plastic bags, glass, metal wreaths and even dog muck in plastic bags.

All this had to be sorted every week to enable the contractors to remove the green waste. This became a soul destroying job.

The PCC discussed this matter and decided to remove the green bins to prevent this abuse because it was beginning to overwhelm the few volunteers willing to carry out this task.

Churchyard users must now take the greenstuff removed from graves home with them and dispose of it themselves.  The majority who use the churchyard have understood this need for change, and have cheerfully carried out this task without any fuss. My heartfelt thanks go to you for your help.

A small group, however, have chosen to ignore the PCC, and continue to dump rubbish where the green bins were sited.  As Mr Ducker said, this is the same as throwing their rubbish into their neighbours garden, and how would they like it if it were done to them?

The wardens and PCC members are volunteers and do not have the time to devote to clearing up the churchyard after perverse individuals who simply ignore the wishes of the majority, and dump their litter. My plea to these people is to simply do what others are doing, and take your rubbish home with you, so that we can keep the churchyard tidy in Ruardean.

– David Parker, People's Warden.