A MASTERPLAN is being drawn up to prevent the amount of household, commercial and industrial waste produced in Lancashire reaching the height of Blackpool Tower by 2001.

The council council, in partnership with Blackburn with Darwen Council and Blackpool Council want people across the county to give their views on how waste and recycling can be better managed in the next century.

A consultation document has been put together and put in libraries and county information centres all over Lancashire, asking for opinions on issues such as what alternatives there are to landfill sites for waste storage and disposal.

County Coun Richard Toon, chairman of the council's municipal waste management streering group, said: "Everyone has their part to play in reducing the amount of waste we produce. "We can no longer have a waste management strategy that relies heavily on dumping huge quantities of waste into landfill sites, we need to devise alternatives that are more environmentally friendly.

"In 1997/8 over 600,000 tonnes of municipal waste was buried in landfill sites in Lancashire. At current rates of waste regeneration, this will lead to a mountain of waste the height of Blackpool Tower by 2001.

"We have been researching the very best waste management systems in operation in Europe and North America and have looked at ways of waste minimisation and recycling.

"None of these strategies can remove the need for landfill sites overnight, but, in time, they willreduce that need greatly."

He added: "We are now calling on the people of Lancashire to make a positive contribution to the creation of a new strategy for the millennium."

For copies of the consultation document, write to Municipal Waste Management in Lancashire, Environment Directorate, Lancashire County Council, Freepost (PR844), PO BOX 9, Guild House, Cross Street, Preston, PR1 3RB, or telephone free on 0800 195 1273.

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