Charges for domestic rubbish will lead to an extra 155,000 tonnes of fly-tipping a year across England with huge costs to local councils, it was claimed yesterday.

The Tories argued that research carried out by government consultants on practices across Europe showed that fly-tipping tended to increase after charging schemes were introduced. But the Government claimed that the consultants had been asked to model a “worst-case scenario” and argued that European countries had shown both increases and decreases in fly-tipping with a variety of charging models.

In May the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) issued a consultation paper on an “incentive scheme” under which residents would be given a rebate if they put out less rubbish than a set target but charged extra if they put out more.

The scheme was criticised by a parliamentary committee on the ground that the incentives and penalties were too small. The incentive scheme was seen as a compromise after fears that the public would vigorously oppose a second tax on domestic rubbish.

“Under our assumptions a considerable amount of illegal disposal takes place,” the Eunomia study, published in December, said. “The additional costs of fly-tip clear-ups amounts to around 80 per cent of the current clean-up bill to local authorities. Postcharging there is an increase in illegal dumping of 155,308 tonnes a year. This will cost £39 million a year to clean up.”

Illegal dumping covered fly-tipping, disposing of waste in litter bins, deliberately putting domestic waste in recycling collections and disposing of waste in neighbours’ bins, according to the study. In a parliamentary answer the Government admitted that incidents had soared from 926,534 in 2204-5 to 2,509,976 in 2005-06.

Eric Pickles, the Shadow Local Government Secretary, said: “Under Labour, fly-tipping has become endemic and is creating a blot on our landscape. Yet ministers’ plans for new taxes on family homes will make it even worse. We all want to increase the level of recycling but bin taxes will harm the local environment by leading to a surge in illegal dumping and backyard burning. Whether they can’t pay or won’t pay, many irresponsible people will dump instead.”

A Defra spokesman said the Eunomia report showed that where financial incentives had been used in other countries, there had been both increases and decreases in fly-tipping.

“There is no need for fly-tipping to increase if early steps are taken to tackle the problem and we have made clear we expect any authority considering a financial incentive scheme to have a fly-tipping strategy in place first,” the spokesman said.

“In order that our analysis took account of as many costs as possible, we asked Eunomia to model costs and benefits with an assumption of an increase in fly-tipping. This does not mean we anticipate that an increase would take place. In reality the impacts would depend on a number of local factors including the type of scheme, how good the recycling service was, and what action the authority took to prevent fly-tipping.”

A spokesman for the Local Government Association said the rise in fly-tipping over the past year was mainly due to increased reporting after the establishment of the Fly Catcher, a body set up by Defra and the Environment Agency. The association said that present costs for collecting and dealing with fly-tipping was between £100 million and £150 million. The Eunomia report suggests that this would rise by £39 million.

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