JUST a brief postscript to my letter (What the country is famous for, Guardian, August 10) having seen the full-page advertisement by the borough council's environment services extolling the virtues of the refuse service, I see that 160,000 properties are serviced weekly.

So now we know that the high accident ratio for the bin men prompting the environment services director to enforce the flat lid policy, is in the region of six accidents per 2.4 million bins or 0.000025 per cent.

One has to wonder if highlighting the alarming accident rate, enforcing the flat lid policy, as well as weight and other restrictions placed on householders for health and safety reasons are attempts by the borough council to make life easier for the bin men and therefore hoping to sweeten them to accept the four-day week policy which the bin men are refusing to budge on.

Incidentally, The Health and Safety at Work Act came into force in 1974 and the wheelie bins have been with us for 16 years. Still, better late than never where safety is involved.

P SYMES Penketh