DISPOSABLE nappies and waste from the manufacture of household sanitary products could be burned at a Clitheroe cement firm as an alternative fuel within the year.

Castle Cement intends asking environment watchdogs for permission to burn paper and plastic household waste products as soon as it completes trial burning of scrap tyres.

The Environment Agency gave the go-ahead for the company to burn tyres at its Ribblesdale plant earlier this year and the trials are expected to start in September.

The company has already claimed a 20 per cent reduction in poisonous emissions from burning tyres at its Ketton plant in Rutland.

Millions of non-biodegradable disposable sanitary items and waste from their manufacture is also dumped in landfill annually.

Castle Cement is already test burning Profuel at its Ketton plant and one of its main suppliers of the waste is Kimberley Clark, which manufactures the popular Pampers brand.

And if the trials at Ribblesdale are equally successful, it could be burning the paper and plastic waste at the plant within the year.

General manager Ian Sutheran said the new Profuel would not include municipal waste or used products, but rejected paper and plastic items, such as disposable nappies and kitchen roll.

"We have given very early notice that we intend burning this waste. We have no intention of burning Profuel at Ribblesdale yet, but will be stepping forward in a year or so to do so when the tyre burning trials are complete.

"I stress it won't be municipal waste or used products. We are talking about pre-consumer waste that will be ground up and used to fire the kilns."

But a spokesman for environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth claimed the Clitheroe community was caught in a cleft stick.

Incinerator campaigner Claire Wilton said: "Burning and burying waste in landfill both cause pollution and we feel recyclables should not be made into fuel. The local community is caught in a cleft stick and shouldn't be faced with this situation.

"We should reduce demand for the kind of products that produce this waste, so that we don't have to suffer these fuels.

"These mixed paper and plastic items are a nightmare to deal with and we have no idea of the effect of burning them."

A spokesman for the Environment Agency said: "Castle Cement has included details of Profuel in its Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control document, but this does not constitute an application to burn the fuel.

"Any future request to burn the fuel will be subject to a formal application process."