A GMB Union study looking at recycling rates across the country’s local authorities has seen Staffordshire Morrlands District Council come out top.

The best performing councils in the country are achieving 60 per cent plus recycling rates. But at the other end of the scale the authorities at the bottom of the table are only managing to recycle around 15 per cent of waste.

Other councils with a good record included South Oxfordshire, Rochford in Essex and Cotswold, all over 60 per cent, followed by Stratford-Upon-Avon (58 per cent) and South Hams in Devon (57 per cent).

GMB national officer Brian Strutton said: “Dumping waste in landfill sites is not only bad for the environment – it’s also increasingly uneconomic. Landfill tax, designed to encourage recycling, is due to rise very sharply over the next four years and that’s why recycling has to be the order of the day.

“Unless councils make a concerted effort to improve recycling rates the landfill tax bill is set to rise by around £670 a year taking the total annual cost of landfill to over £3bn.”