Editorial: Let's see you rubbish recycling, Mr Pickles

A new front has opened on the furious political battlefield that is rubbish collection. Eric Pickles, the Conservative Communities Secretary, has threatened to withdraw funding from local councils that fail to run a weekly service, fulminating against "Labour myths" and claiming there is "no plausible reason" for less frequent bin collection. Except it appears that there is – and a very good one, too.

According to figures from elsewhere in Whitehall, nine of the 10 councils that have cut rubbish rounds to fortnightly – a practice somewhat emotively labelled "lazy and unnecessary" by Mr Pickles' department – have seen a sharp rise in recycling. Part of Surrey, for example, now recycles almost double what it did.

We await, with interest, the counterattack from Mr Pickles and his fellow once-a-weekers. An impassioned denial of the merits of recycling, perhaps.