Councils across Sussex would have to recycle all household rubbish by 2020 under Liberal Democrat plans unveiled today.

The party's annual conference in Brighton was being asked to set the daunting target in a policy motion this afternoon.

Councils would be ordered to meet interim targets of recycling 60 per cent of rubbish by 2010 and 75 per cent by 2015.

Environment spokesman and Lewes MP Norman Baker was set to tell delegates the Government had "failed" to encourage imaginative ways of treating and disposing of rubbish.

The Lib Dems would help councils by boosting doorstep recycling, banning the landfill of untreated organic rubbish and encouraging businesses to use packaging which can be re-used.

Under the plans, which were expected to be approved, the Landfill Tax would also be reformed to remove incentives for burning rubbish.

Earlier today, the party was warmly welcomed to the city by deputy mayor, Councillor David Watkins.

Yesterday party leader Charles Kennedy kicked off the five-day event with a prediction the Lib Dems could take seats from both Labour and the Conservatives in upcoming elections.

Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said the Lib Dems had made a "strategic blunder" when winning last week's Brent East by-election by positioning themselves to the left of Labour.

Most of the Liberal Democrats' target seats in the next General Election are held by Conservatives and there has been a big internal debate on whether the party should veer to the right to pick up wavering Tory voters' support.

But Mr Kennedy insisted that policies like the scrapping of university tuition fees and free long-term nursing care for the elderly were attractive to former supporters of both of the leading parties.

He said: "I probably spoke to as many voters as anyone in Brent and not once did anyone mention the politics of left or right. What they want are the politics that address people's concerns and the concerns of their community."