RECYCLING is a load of rubbish, Britain’s leading environmental scientists said yesterday.

Overturning decades of conventional wisdom, the scientists, including one of the Government’s advisers, said that official policies to increase recycling were counter-productive, and did more harm than good.

They also criticised environmental groups, saying their recycling campaigns were so misguided they were damaging the environment, and that much of the recycling of plastics, bottles and paper had only marginal benefits. They said more rubbish should be burnt in incinerators — words which reflected comments made last month by top Swedish environmentalists.

In a press conference at the Royal Institution in London yesterday, Roland Clift, professor of Environmental Technology at the University of Surrey, and a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, said: “The idea that recycling is a solution to everything is not valid. Recycling glass has marginal benefit, and if you have to transport it large distances, there is no point. Recycling paper is marginal.”

Britain has one of the lowest recycling rates in Europe, accounting for just 12 per cent of household waste by weight. The Government has a target to increase that to 25 per cent by 2005. But Professor Clift said: “There is a fundamental nonsense in the regulations. The target is based on weight, and gives no incentive to recycle lighter materials, which are often the best.”

Recycling aluminium, for example, uses just 5 per cent of the energy of producing it in the first place, but because it is so light local authorities tend to concentrate on heavier materials. Recycling paper does nothing to save trees, because all paper in Britain comes from tree plantations. “Recycling paper to save trees is like not eating bread to save wheat,” said Professor Clift.

More plastic should be burnt in incinerators to produce energy. “Burning plastics as an oil substitute saves oil,” said Professor William Powrie, head of the Environmental Engineering department at Southampton University.

Incineration produces very low levels of emissions and reduces the volume of waste to be landfilled by 90 per cent.

Professor Powrie said that landfill was not as bad as often thought. “Methane gas can be drawn off and burnt to produce electricity. Britain’s landfills produce enough electricity to power a city the size of Leeds.”

A spokesman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: “The most effective solution is often to reduce the generation of waste in the first place.”

Clare Wilton, a waste campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: “Incineration never creates as much energy as is needed to create the product in the first place. Incineration is a waste of resources.”

The Labour MP Joan Ruddock introduced a Bill in Parliament last week to almost double the target for recycling.

“It’s going further in the wrong direction,” said Professor Clift. However, he said that householders should not give up the practice of separating different types of waste. If local authorities developed appropriate policies, such separation would be essential.

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