more waste than expected.

"We've been pleasantly shocked,'' Government's solid waste manager Mr. Dan Hoornweg said yesterday. "We can hardly keep up. We are getting four or five times more than we expected.'' Government started spreading recycling bins around the Island in late February, asking residents to contribute tins, bottles and newspapers to a worthy cause -- cutting down on the 80,000 tonnes of solid waste the Island generates each year.

Bermuda produces more garbage per capita than almost anywhere else on the planet. Output is going up about four percent a year. Pembroke Dump is fast turning into a mountain, and is expected to grow 30 feet in the next three years.

Not surprisingly, one of Government's big recycling fears was that nobody would be interested.

But a bigger problem, it turned out, was keeping the 43 recycling bins from overflowing.

Some have to be emptied every day, Mr. Hoornweg said, and residents are sometimes forced to leave bags of tins, bottles and newspapers beside the recycling dumpsters after they fill up during weekends. "We are working to fix that,'' he said.

There have also been a few complaints that the metal lids of the bins -- which were not specifically designed for recycling -- are a little heavy to raise.

"These containers are temporary, and we want to start residential collection as soon as possible,'' Mr. Hoornweg said. "If they were going to be there forever, we'd get different containers and we'd at least want a separate container for newspaper.'' But the biggest complaint, Mr. Hoornweg said, "is that people want to do more.'' Many have wondered why there are not different bins for different colours of glass, as they may have seen in Europe or North America.

"We don't have to do that because we are going to be using it as aggregate on the Island,'' he said.

"We have been tailoring the programme to fit Bermuda. We have taken the good parts from programmes overseas and tried to make it as easy as possible to use.'' So far, the waste collected has simply been stockpiled at the main recycling centre in Devonshire. The sorting and shredding equipment should swing into action sometime next week, Mr. Hoornweg said.

Oil and battery collection is going well, but so far is used mostly by large producers like gas stations.

Public meetings on Government's waste programme -- which includes the Tynes Bay incinerator scheduled to open in 1994 -- are scheduled for next week.