The new Landfill Allowance Scheme is aimed at helping the UK reduce the amount of biodegradable waste buried in landfill sites and answers the Governments targets to divert 67 percent of municipal waste from landfill by 2015.

However Friends of the Earth argues that the scheme will simply see waste being burnt rather than buried.

The organisation is calling for higher national recycling targets to be brought in, along with a tax on burning waste and the removal of current financial incentives for incineration.

Friends of the Earth's senior waste campaigner Claire Wilton said: "We urgently need to drive waste away from landfill, but not into the arms of incinerator operators. The public wants to recycle, not burn rubbish. The Government must remove the financial incentive to incinerate rubbish and introduce higher national recycling targets."

Despite these concerns Environment Minister Elliot Morley welcomed the scheme and highlighted how it is set to help local authorities meet waste targets. Elliot Morley said: "The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme is an innovative and flexible approach which moves Government away from the old tools of command and control by offering an alternative to the regulatory system of inflexible targets.

"The scheme will not only help to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, but will encourage local authorities to promote waste minimisation and to use positive methods of waste management such as reuse, composting, recycling and energy recovery.

“The scheme is the first of its kind in the municipal waste sector, but trading schemes have already been used successfully across the world in other sectors, most notably to reduce emissions to the atmosphere."

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