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Following calls from local authorities, the government is also launching a parallel public consultation on removing the ban on local authorities introducing financial incentives for recycling. Any such schemes will have to return all revenues back to local residents.

The main points of the waste strategy include:

• more effective incentives for individuals and businesses to recycle waste, leading to at least 40 per cent of household waste recycled or composted by 2010, rising to 50 per cent by 2020. This is a significant increase on the targets in the previous waste strategy, published in 2000
• a greater responsibility on businesses for the environmental impact of their products and operations through, for example, a drive to minimise packaging and higher targets for recycling packaging
• a strong emphasis on waste prevention with householders reducing their waste (for example, through home composting and reducing food waste) and business helping consumers, for example, with less packaging. There will also be a new national target to help measure this - to reduce the amount of household waste not re-used, recycled or composted from 22.2 million tonnes in 2000 to 12.2 million tonnes by 2020 - a reduction of 45 per cent
• the government has agreed with the Direct Marketing Association to develop a service so that people will be able to opt-out of receiving unaddressed as well as addressed direct mail. The government is also considering moving towards an approach where people would only get direct mail if they opted in by placing their name on the direct mail register
• working with retailers for the end of free single use bags. This could involve retailers only selling long-life bags, or retailers charging for disposable bags and using the proceeds to sell long-life bags at a discount.
• a challenge to see recycling extended from the home and office and taken into public areas like shopping malls, train stations and cinema multiplexes, so that it becomes a natural part of everyday life. To help deliver this, the government is working with owners of public spaces to draw up guidance and a voluntary code of practice to be published by the end of the year. Groups including the Airport Operators Association, British Council of Shopping Centres, Earls Court and Olympia Group, Highways Agency and the Local Government Association have already come out in support of this. In particular, the Royal Parks has committed to putting recycling bins in all its parks within the next 12 months and the Association of Event Venues says its members plan to install recycling bins for waste brought in by audiences at major events
• subject to further analysis and consultation, banning biodegradable and recyclable waste from being put into landfill sites.
• an increase in the landfill tax escalator by £8 per year from 2008 until at least 2010/11 - announced by the Chancellor in March. Partly as a result of this, business waste landfilled is expected to fall by 20 per cent by 2010 compared with 2004.
• increasing the amount of energy produced by a variety of energy from waste schemes, using waste that can't be reused or recycled. It is expected that from 2020 a quarter of municipal waste - waste collected by local authorities, mainly from households - will produce energy, compared to 10 per cent today.

David Miliband said "We need to not only recycle and reuse waste, but also prevent it in the first place. And there's a particular challenge for businesses to produce less waste with their products, so consumers have less of it to dispose of.

"The result will be a win for individuals, who will have a cleaner, safer local environment, while potentially saving money, and a win for the wider environment because it'll reduce landfilled waste which contributes to climate change.

"This strategy sets out how we can achieve this. It provides a range of tools for local authorities, businesses and individuals to do the job. It calls for action from all, without imposing one-size-fits-all solutions. It empowers local authorities to make the right decisions for local circumstances in consultation with their local populations."

Further information

The waste strategy and consultation paper on incentives for recycling by households can be found on the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) website.

• The waste strategy and consultation paper on incentives for recycling by households Opens new window

There is more information about rubbish collection and recycling elsewhere on Directgov.

• Waste and recycling (Environment and greener living section)
• Street cleaning, litter and illegal dumping (Home and community section)