Waste is an ever-mounting issue in Sussex.

As Brighton and Hove City Council and East Sussex County Council prepare to agree a £1 billion waste contract, which will include an incinerator at Newhaven, The Argus spoke to environment minister Michael Meacher on how we should deal with our rubbish.

The greenest environment minister England has yet had, he envisages making councils recycle more of the thousands of tonnes of household waste we throw away every year.

His waste strategy for England, unveiled three years ago, rejected voluntary guidelines and for the first time set statutory targets.

By 2015 councils will have to recycle 33 per cent of domestic rubbish, up from an average of about 12 per cent today.

It is high enough to start shedding the country's dirty man of Europe label but you wonder whether, privately, the minister would like to have seen higher figures.

England's recycling record has been woeful compared to many of our European neighbours. Germany averages 52 per cent, the Netherlands 47 per cent.

To reach the modest 33 per cent target, councils will have to introduce more door-to-door, or kerb-side, collections.

Mr Meacher said: "We are in favour of steadily expanding kerb-side collections, that is already happening.

"Forty-three per cent of all local authorities do some kerb-side collections to meet the targets and that percentage will increase sharply.

"I think it will be very difficult for any local authority not to have kerb-side if they are to treble the figures they had in 2000."

Whether this adds up to enough carrots and sticks to change our throw-away habits remains to be seen.

Mr Meacher is ambiguous on whether the Government will support the Municipal Waste Recycling Bill, backed by green groups and due to be debated in the House of Commons for the first time next week.

The Bill, being steered through Parliament by Joan Ruddock, would make councils provide kerb-side recycling for the majority of homes in England and set a recycling target of 50 per cent.

There is still no sign of the type of initiative such as the tax on plastic bags introduced in Ireland last year, which resulted in the number given away at shops and supermarkets drop by 90 per cent in eight months.

There is also little sign the Government is about to turn its back on incinerating waste, although Mr Meacher does not expect a "significant expansion" in the number of burners.

One of those incinerators is at North Quay, Newhaven, which is part of waste plans proposed by Brighton and Hove City Council and East Sussex County Council.

Mr Meacher disputes the councils' assertion the burner, capable of handling 225,000 tonnes of rubbish a year, is a medium-sized plant, saying it would be "large by comparison with other incinerators".

He said the Government wanted small-scale incinerators, which produced heat and power for local people and did not stifle increased recycling levels.

On possible health effects, he said there had been a 200 per cent cut in dioxin emissions and the Government had adopted tough European rules to cap pollution.

He said: "The biggest increase of dioxins is not incinerators. It is certain types of industrial plant such as iron and steel."

One burner is now planned in East Sussex, rather than the two originally envisaged.

An anaerobic digestion plant, proposed at Pebsham, Bexhill, to mash down waste without resorting to incineration is the type of modern alternative Mr Meacher would like to see.

He said: "These are all being developed as alternatives to the mass burn incinerators and that is what I expect to happen.

"I think these would be small scale. They have to get planning permission and they have to be accepted by local people."

Underpinning the strategies and technologies are two diverging trends.

The amount we are throwing away is increasing by about three per cent every year while landfilling, which is the traditional way of dealing with waste, has run out of time.

The Government's strategy unit last year recommended reducing the growth of household waste to two per cent by 2006.

The Brighton and Hove and East Sussex plan is likely to fail unless that growth can be cut to 1.3 per cent a year.

Large-scale landfilling is in the process of being outlawed by the European Union, forcing society to make a "colossal shift", according to Mr Meacher.

Even without the new rules, Brighton and Hove and East Sussex would be in trouble because their landfill sites will be full by 2007.

The councils would then have to pay to truck waste out of the area until the Newhaven burner is operating.

What is really required, according to groups such as Defenders of the Ouse Valley and Estuary set up to oppose the Newhaven incinerator, is a far more radical approach.

They want Zero Waste policies, which are already working in parts of Australia, Canada and the United States.

Zero Waste's enthusiasts say at least 75 per cent of household rubbish could easily be recycled without adding much to the cost of disposal, creating jobs and doing away with the need for incineration.

Mr Meacher is one of those enthusiasts, although a guarded one.

He said: "We are a long, long way from that. That is the way I think we have got to go."