It feels like a bit of an own goal that Arsenal FC didn’t even approach the only brewery in Islington when picking its new official drinks partner.

I don't know what requirements there were about ability to scale, or how much Camden Town Brewery has paid (if anything) for the right to fill fans' cups.

But who's to say Hammerton couldn't have stepped up its game given the enormous opportunity that would have come with the contract?

All that money could have stayed locally instead of being funnelled up the corporate ladder to Belgium, where Anheuser-Busch InBev is based.

If the decision was a purely financial one, I understand that business is business. And I mean Camden Town Brewery absolutely no ill will - I love some of its beers and it's certainly no worse than Carlsberg.

But Arsenal has often positioned itself as a locally-focused organisation despite its size - look at its laudable Arsenal in the Community programme, which has made a difference to the lives of many in Islington. So, for my money at least, not even giving Hammerton the chance to bid for this contract leaves a sour taste.

- North London Waste Authority has wildly upscaled its PR operation in the last year or two - at one point it felt like every other phone call we received was a final (final, final) check we'd received every last detail about some or other clothing swap shop in a park nine weeks hence.

Funny it wasn't so forthcoming about the plan to recommission an enormous incinerator to burn Islington's household waste.

We need to be incentivising recycling, and this feels like a step in the wrong direction. There is no sustainable version of the future that involves producing the same amount of non-recyclable household waste as we have been.

My personal belief is that we will never achieve adequate recycling levels without centralising or even automating the burden of separating waste currently borne by the public. But however we do it, we need to reach a point - soon - where our waste levels are much lower than they were, and where almost everything we do throw away goes to be recycled. NLWA should be putting all its resources, financial and political, into achieving that goal, not planning on missing it.