EAST Lancashire MPs are to protest to ministers over a new blueprint for disposing of hazardous waste which would site five tips for toxic rubbish in the area.

Tory Nigel Evans. Ribble Valley MP, has warned warned the government: "East Lancashire is not a dump for the United Kingdom.''

He and Labour backbenches Greg Pope, of Hyndburn, and Janet Anderson, of Rossendale and Darwen, are alarmed that so many of the 200 special landfill sites nationwide are to be in East Lancashire.

They are to protest to Environment Minister Michael Meacher.

This week the five landfill sites across East Lancashire were cleared to take hazardous waste under government moves to clarify where toxic materials will be dumped in the future.

Now such substances are often mixed up with household rubbish and dumped in normal landfills. New European rules mean this practice must end.

The sites are earmarked by the Environment Agency are at Church Works, Accrington; Thorny Height Quarry, Darwen; Coplow Quarry at the Castle Cement works in Clitheroe; and Deerplay Landfill and Hapton Works, Burnley.

They are on a list of more than 200 landfills across England and Wales which have been given permission officially to upgrade to take hazardous material.

This can include clinical and medical waste, oil and asbestos.

Rossendale and Darwen MP Mrs Anderson said: "I am very concerned about this. It seems too much to have one hazardous waste tip in Darwen, one just over the border of my constituency at Deerplay and five in East Lancashire as a whole.

"I shall be taking this issue up with Mr Meacher. This simply does not seem fair.''

Nigel Evans said: "I can see no reason why the area should have five out of the 200 hazardous waste tips in the country. East Lancashire is not a dump for the UK.

"There is already concern abort waste treatment at Castle Cement and local people will be very alarmed at this latest news.

"I shall be contact Mr Meacher about this. It is quite simply not on.''

Greg Pope said: "This does seem disproportionate. Why should East Lancashire have five out of 200 such sites?

"I shall be tasking this up with Mr Meacher as a matter of urgency. We all accept that hazardous waste needs to be disposed of safely somewhere, but I cannot see that so much of it should be dumped on one small area of Lancashire.''

The government's Landfill Directive sets out a range of new controls which include the separation of landfills into three types -- hazardous, non-hazardous and inert.

This will end the current practice of disposing of hazardous and non-hazardous waste on the same sites by 2004.

Campaigners claim the hazardous pollutants can cause birth defects and skin and eye irritation and can be carried to nearby neighbourhoods on the wind and in ground water.

But a spokesman for the Environment Agency said: "We have checked all the sites and the public has no need to worry."