TORIES IN "GREEN" OFFENSIVE ON WASTE

The Conservatives will next week launch a "blue-green" offensive to capture environmental votes at the next election, with a promise to scrap plans for waste incinerators across the country.

In a pre-emptive strike ahead of the government's waste strategy announcement also due next week, the Tories will unveil plans to impose a moratorium on new incinerators until independent scientific evidence process they are safe.

Archie Norman, shadow environment spokesman, will promise to divert resources from incinerators to local authorities and urge them to "promote recycling and green behaviour amongst businesses and residents".

In their biggest green policy shift to date, the Conservatives say they want to change the whole culture surrounding waste and change public attitudes to waste disposal, packaging and dumping.

An election manifesto plan will say any incinerators should be used to generate energy from waste, and local residents should be compensated for having to live nearby.

The Tories will promise to put pressure on local government to ensure every home in the country has recyclables collected separately from other waste. Residents should be able to drop off larger items of recyclable waste at collection points or recycling centres.

Tories will say they will increase council's resources for recycling and composting by reforming the landfill tax credit scheme and introducing a tradable permit system for the disposal of household waste by landfill.

Britain lags well behind most other equivalent economies. It recycles just 6 per cent of household waste compared with 24 per cent in the US, 18 per cent in Germany and 28 per cent in the Netherlands.

However a European Union landfill directive has to be passed into UK law by July 2001, requiring that the amount of biodegradable household waste in landfill must be reduced from the present 85 per cent to 35 per cent of 1995 levels by 2020. 

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