Front Page News: The great recycling con trick: How 12million tons of your carefully sorted waste is being dumped in foreign landfill sites by Steve Doughty

#Environment Agency orders councils to check on their contractors

#Waste sent to countries including China, Indonesia and India

Millions of tons of household rubbish painstakingly sorted by families for recycling is being dumped abroad.

Whitehall has admitted that waste from recycling bins is being shipped to countries including China, India and Indonesia, where much of it ends up in landfill.

In papers published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, ministers concede that what happens to the 12million tons of ‘green’ waste shipped abroad every year is largely beyond their control.

The trade in sending rubbish abroad – mainly to Asia – has doubled over the past decade, as councils have increasingly turned to contractors to deal with mountains of waste generated by compulsory recycling schemes.