We’ve always been cautious of what we throw away, yet since sourcing all our supplies from local businesses, the volume of our waste has further diminished. The bulk of our shopping – fruit, veg, meat, fish, cheese and dried goods – comes in nothing more than paper or flimsy plastic bags. The milkman takes away our empties and the health food shop refills our detergent bottles.

Our consumption of processed foods has drastically reduced, cutting right down on all those cartons, boxes, plastic trays and tubs. And we’re no longer open to the supermarkets’ methods of tempting us to buy more than we really need.

That’s not to say we’re squeaky clean; we still manage to fill a bag with recycling most fortnights.

Much of the stuff that can’t go for recycling has a tendency to go smelly which is why hackles rise in line with the prevailing temperature. But rather than grumble about stinking wheelie bins and maggots, some very simple solutions may be deployed.

Cooked food waste need not go foul in the heat of the bin. In our house, any potentially smelly stuff, like fish skin and scrapings from the kids’ plates, goes into a dedicated box in the bottom of the fridge. (I’ve labelled it clearly, in case anyone should mistake the contents for the leftovers of my cooking). It can happily sit for two weeks without causing a stink.

I never cease to marvel at the compost bin’s seemingly endless capacity for vegetable waste. However much we put in there, it just disappears. And it doesn’t smell, unless you put your head right inside (not a pursuit I recommend). It will also evaporate quantities of cardboard, shredded paper and lawn clippings.

Thanks to local shopping and liberal use of the compost bin, we have no need for wheelie bins. One old galvanised dustbin is ample for all our rubbish. Our household of five produces only about half a bin bag of landfill in a fortnight. No maggots, no smells, no grumbles.