I HAVE just read the letter from Alan Stephenson, director of environment services, informing Guardian readers, that in three years there have been six accidents to bin men (three of which were minor and not reportable).

This explanation is Town Hall bureaucracy at its finest - what this country is famous for.

While nobody wishes to see anyone injured carrying out official employment duties, on a purely statistical point, one has to ask Mr Stephenson just how many bins were emptied during the three year period covered when the flat lid' policy was not seriously enforced?

This information will then give us an accident percentage of many zeros to the right of the decimal point, before we even reach the first digit.

We can now inform previous correspondents that a lid open, even one centimetre, is critical to safe municipal bin operations these days, due to the severe technical tolerances of refuse vehicle hoists.

This explains why Town Hall environmental services directors are never seen at NASA shuttle launches (the stress is too great).

Presumably Mr Stephenson was unable to bring himself to watch the recent episodes of The Trawler Men on BBC1, as this would have given him permanent health and safety nightmares.

Remember when depositing fish bones in your bin, trawler men do the country's most perilous job, for far less than a bin man's wage, while working three times the hours in mountainous seas.

Let's cut out the stuff the bin men haul away and look at some other statistics.

Last year 369 children were injured nationally in children's playgrounds (Mr Stephenson's area of responsibility).

Other accidents, (involving household items), requiring visits to casualty last year included: 185: bottle openers, 964: cardigans, 739: watering cans, 5,310: trousers, 123: curtain pelmets, 493: cakes and scones, 37: tea cosies, 14,149: vegetables (source: The Indypedia published by the Independent newspaper).

Look after yourselves at home and thank God you're not a bin man!

P SYMES Penketh