Do green equations add up?

My kitchen has become a bit niffy these days. Well it's the demands of recycling you see. We now have domestic waste separated into paper (most sorts acceptable but not telephone directories), cardboard, plastics, cans, glass, compostable food waste, non-compostable food waste. Seven separate groups of waste, filed away in their own designated part of the kitchen, ready to be disposed of.

Of course the kitchen also features the waste preparation area, where the food cans and glass gets washed before filing. And it was while I was washing cans and glass prior to filing that a nagging doubt crept into my mind and just wouldn't leave. Do all these recycling initiatives actually make a difference to the planet, or does it just give us something to do while we wait for global warming to cook us to a crisp.

Take the plastics. Well I wish the council would - but instead they are banned from the dust-bins leaving the problem of disposal with me. So I collect them, wash them, and once a week load up the boot and drive down to the recycling centre to dispose of them. Have I made a net saving to the planet? It seems unlikely.

Glass recycling has always worried me. Adding recycled glass to the raw ingredients used for glass manufacture does save energy - but only up to a point. After the level of recycled glass exceeds 15-20%, the energy required to manufacture glass starts to increase again. If you include the domestic pre-wash, collection, delivery to the glass factory, industrial cleansing and processing, is this really beneficial.

It seems to me that the onus of going green has all been placed on the willing but tired shoulders of the consumer. We have all bought our hessian bags so that we don't need to use supermarket provided plastic bags and we sort our waste at home and in the office. But the government seems very slow to progress the initiatives which would really make a difference - integrated transport systems, alternative power sources, reducing the packaging on products....

And just as I stack the last can on the drying rack, and am feeling completely baffled the radio brings me the latest cricket news. The MCC have considered Pietersens controversial changing from right to left hander during the delivery of the ball by the bowler and "The MCC believes that the switch-hit stroke is exciting for the game of cricket" - apparently are not going to ban it! What? Now I will have to re-evaluate everything I previously thought I understood about life - and of course I am completely baffled.