Businesses are being urged to do more to reduce waste.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has published a consultation document dealing with domestic and commercial waste.

The Government said it wanted to see a 67 per cent recovery of domestic and business waste by 2015, through methods such as recycling, composting and making energy from waste.

In 2002/2003, 11.1 million tonnes of waste was produced in the North-East, compared to 11 million tonnes in 1998/99. Businesses and industry produced 4.6 million tonnes and the construction and demolition sector 4.9 million tonnes. Households accounted for the remainder.

A total of 4.6 million tonnes was sent to landfill sites in 2002/2003, 4.9 million tonnes were recycled, and 500,000 tonnes was used to produce energy.

Minister for Local Environment Quality Ben Bradshaw said: "We have made some really positive progress since 2000 - recycling and composting of household waste has doubled, nearly 50 per cent of packaging waste is being recycled and less waste is being sent to landfill.

"But there is more to do in order to achieve our aim to reduce our rising streams of waste and bury less of it in landfills by making use of the valuable resources it contains.

"We need to put more effort into producing less waste in the first place, before considering how to make more use of the waste that is left by reusing, recycling, composting or using it as a fuel.

"This means thinking about the whole lifecycle of a product, identifying and targeting products with the most significant waste impacts before it even reaches consumers in the North-East and using what waste is left as a resource to produce economic as well as environmental benefits.

"It will be vital for everyone in the North East - from householders and builders to supermarkets and banks - to have their say in the strategy and how it will take us towards our goals."

The consultation paper is available from the Defra website at www.defra.gov.uk

Published: 28/02/2006