Your article (The Argus, August 12) understated Brighton and Hove City Council's considerable achievements on recycling.

Some of this may be due to inconsistencies between government figures The Argus received and the council's own statistics.

Recycling has not just "increased by two per cent in the past five years". Indeed, figures from the government did not even include last year (2003/4) so it would have been impossible to draw that conclusion.

For the record, recycling has increased from ten per cent in 1998/99 to 16 per cent in 2003/4.

That's a rise of six per cent, not two per cent. The rate of increase in the city's recycling is actually double the national average increase.

The rate for July 2004 is up again, now standing at 18.3 per cent.

We are rapidly extending doorstep recycling to 6,000 additional households a month. By this time next year the overwhelming majority of homes will receive this service, providing a huge boost to recycling.

It is also important to put figures for the top recycling councils into context. They are rural areas and collect a lot of green waste that they count as recycled material.

This clearly boosts the tonnage of recycled matter they appear to gather.

This is more difficult in an urban environment so at the moment we are encouraging people to compost garden and organic waste while we consider what composting schemes might work and attract the necessary resources.

-Councillor Gill Mitchell, chairwoman, environment committee Brighton & Hove City Council