THE amount of rubbish households in the Malvern Hills district throw away every day would fill over 400 double-decker buses.

That translates to nearly 24,000 tonnes of waste disposed of between April and December 2001, according to Worcestershire County Council.

But a pioneering recycling and composting scheme has been launched in Malvern's Howsell Road in an effort to reduce rubbish by up to 30 per cent.

The Slim The Bin campaign - which had an initial five-week run over the Christmas period - tied into a scheme started by the county council two years ago.

Up to December the initiative had passed the Malvern Hills district by, but environmental charity Welcome To Our Future stepped in to run the scheme as part of its waste minimisation campaign.

Sue Fyleman, who was in charge of the project at the Malvern-based charity, said: "We've got to start taking responsibility for the rubbish we create, otherwise we'll end up being buried underneath it all. We need to make better use of our resources through recycling them rather than putting them underground in a landfill site.

"With compostable materials making up between 20 per cent and 35 per cent of rubbish, if everyone used a compost bin then that would reduce our waste dramatically."

Jan Inglis, one of the 11 residents in Howsell Road who took part in the project, said: "I was quite concerned about the amount of rubbish we collect.

"We were putting out about four bags a week, although we are a house of seven. I'd been thinking about recycling and feeling rather guilty.

"It's not anything new to recycle but this scheme gives you an extra boost. Otherwise people will just continue to throw everything away and if everyone does that we will drown in rubbish."

Residents were given a composting bin, a smaller bin to go in

their

kitchen along with a set of

scales to weigh the amount of rubbish they threw away and recycled. The project finished this week and organisers are currently analysing the results.

"It was much easier than I expected it to be," said Ms Inglis. "It certainly helped me to be aware of how I dispose of my waste. Now I wash my empty food cans. During the campaign I've been much more conscientious about recycling glass, paper, cans and cardboard."

Donald Trigg, who lives in Howsell Road with his wife Rita, said: "We've always done recycling. Whenever we have bottles we take them to be recycled. We've just made a bit of extra effort with this scheme."

One problem encountered by some of the older residents was the lack of kerbside collection for recyclable material. Participants were required to take the material to recycling collection points around the town.

"We've got no transport so we have to carry it to the collection point," said Mr Trigg. "Newspapers and bottles are very heavy and it's nearly a mile there. There needs to be more collection points. There could even be different colour sacks for different things so they could collect it."

Ms Inglis agreed. She said: "I would like to be able to put it in different colour bags. It would be excellent if there was collection of the recyclables.

"We're lagging very much behind other countries in recycling. There are European targets but we're not going to meet them. Over Christmas, it made me very much aware of how much packaging there is. And where does it all go? It has to go into a landfill or be burnt."

Paul Sobczyk, head of client services at the district council, said: "Kerbside collection of recyclables is something every local authority has to look at. The idea is eventually to have it in Malvern."