The other day I was in a coffee lounge when some teenagers were talking about recycling. The leader looked at me and said “You older lot don’t know what it is like to recycle. We have separate bins for plastic, paper and all sorts of stuff.”

I was furious.

I said “Let me tell you about my generation and recycling. We wasted nothing. For example you’re used to plastic pop bottles but we had glass bottles and they were returnable - I’d take them back to the shop and get two pennies back. It gave us children a source of pocket money. We’d ask friends and neighbours if they wanted us to take their bottles back. Milk bottles were returned to the dairy, washed and used time and time again. And we all got our groceries from a grocers shop instead of a supermarket - everything was weighed out into paper bags - there was very little plastic.

Even our newspaper was recycled at the fish and chip shop, they used to give us a free bag of chips for clean newspapers, or we’d use them for firelighters. As a child I’d get around by walking or people had bicycles, there was much less traffic on the road. We didn’t use cars to drive to school, we walked even as young as 5 years old. There isn't a need for all this traffic. It’s chock-a-block tail to tail. None of the families I knew had holidays abroad - so fewer planes in the sky. We’d put any food waste in a pig bin and a pig breeder would collect your food waste. And shoes weren’t thrown away but taken to the cobbler to mend.

This year me and my husband have stocked up with extra blankets and water bottles because we know we aren’t going to be able to afford heating.