BRIAN D Coombs may well be correct about the silly 'non-jobs' local authorities are advertising at the taxpayers expense, but I must put him right on one thing, real nappy officers.

If he stopped living in the 1950s, and bothered to find out facts before spouting ignorant opinion, he might find he learns something new.

It costs Mr Coombs and every other Gazette reader an incredible amount in council tax to dispose of so-called 'disposable' nappies, whether or not he personally has a new baby or an incontinent elderly relative.

It is the biggest single item that goes into our rubbish bins, and can't be recycled. The chemicals in disposable nappies change the sex of fish, and the nappy itself has a half-life of 500 years in our waste tips.

But here's where Mr Coombs' ignorance comes in, I'll admit they can sometimes be smelly, but real nappies in the 21st century don't have to be boiled and are not 'cloths'.

That was something your mother did, Mr Coombs, and times have changed. Real nappies are shaped like disposables, with velcro fastenings, not pins and are washed in a washing machine at 60 deg C.

But new mums never get to find out how much more convenient, healthier and cheaper modern real nappies are to disposables because of the billion-pound advertising industry promoting nappies, and because of ignorant attitudes and comments from the likes of Mr Coombs, which set the campaign for real nappies back 50 years.

Every local authority should have a real nappy officer, within months it will save taxpayers like Mr Coombs thousands in landfill tax alone. If he thinks it's a non-job, perhaps he would like to come up with an answer to our growing nappy mountain himself. Or maybe he should be asking NWDC why they haven't got a real nappy officer yet.

T CORK

High Street

Malmesbury