A theory put forward by the Amenities chap at last night’s Broadfield Forum is that most of our litter and rubbish is caused not by a shortage of available litter bins but by the presence of those that we already have. This is why those bins which were removed during the Queen’s visit for security reasons were not replaced and why there is a plan to further reduce the number of bins in the town.

He actually said that it is his ambition to see all the bins removed. At a cost of £250 per bin and £140 per dog bin I can’t see his bosses wanting to stand in his way as it saves them looking for other places to reduce services.

I do not know if this move away from providing litter bins has been discussed in the council or if councillors are aware of it. The one who was at the meeting did not seem to be surprised or opposed to it. As a policy of a council which is boasting of its commitment to keeping the town clean and tidy it is definitely counter-intuitive.

The funny thing is that he may be right. He is, after all, an expert in the field and I am not, so his opinion is much more likely to be right than mine is. But when eminent scientists all say that mobile phone masts are perfectly safe it does not stop anyone who once slept through a primary school science lesson feeling qualified to know better – so even if the theory is correct (and it is only a theory remember) it will still be a brave policy for a politician to promote.

Why is it that an opinion seems to carry more weight if it comes from a layman than from someone with years of education, training and experience in a topic? I have seen plenty of examples where common sense crossed with stubbornness refuses to give in to calculation and proof.

Traffic is a case in point. We have all heard experts say that if everyone kept to the speed limit on the motorway it would reduce congestion and everyone would actually get to their destination more quickly as they would travel at a constant 70 instead of bursts of 90 in between waits in static queues… and at one level we know its possibly true or even probably true, but on another level we can’t see how we can travel faster by not speeding up – because it is counter-intuitive and we are driven by our intuition more than by facts. (I think this example is possibly related to the classic prisoners’ dilemma)

Another traffic example is seeing the predicted effect on traffic levels by a new development. I have seen studies where a development of 200 houses is predicted to increase queues at the nearest junction by an average of one car during peak hours. I have listened to the explanations of the methods used, followed the calculations and seen the proof – but it still does not sound right.

A more recent example is the bunny roundabout by my workplace. If I had been asked for an instinctive estimate of how much space each rabbit had to live in I might have said it was a couple of square metres each – but doing some calculations based on conservative estimates of population showed that they probably have more space each than we do in our houses. Common sense, intuition and instinct all said the rabbits were crammed together but maths said they had loads of space.

So I am not going to suggest this bin theory is wrong, (“unproven” is as far as I will go) but I am glad I am not the one who has to stand up and say “we are going to tackle the problem of litter by removing all the bins, and if we save a fortune then that’s just a bonus.”

On the other hand… I place trust in the opinions of experts more than most people do, and possibly too much. You would not have to be unusually cynical to see the combination of removing litter bins while increasing the number of wardens issuing littering tickets and come up with a conspiracy. It could just be a co-incidence.