Council chiefs have put forward a £2 million plan to solve Bradford's waste crisis.

The district is not recycling enough of the 250,000 tonnes of rubbish it produces each year.

And new Government rules mean Council tax payers face £10 million in fines over the next two years unless the issue is tackled.

If Bradford's waste mountain grows at current rates, the district could expect to dispose of 256,250 tonnes of waste by the end of this year, but the new landfill tax scheme allows just 235,900 tonnes to be landfilled.

And in 15 years' time Bradford has to cut its landfill to just 71,500 tonnes - a 70 per cent reduction on current levels. The authority also faces fines for every tonne sent to landfill above its allocation.

At the city's fraught budget meeting back in February members agreed a £2.2 million package to solve the landfill tax issue.

The plan the Council's officers have come up with will go before the authority's ruling executive on Tuesday for approval.

It sees the district avoid fines until 2008, but, by then, environment bosses hope to have a new waste reclamation plant working which will solve the long-term problem at a stroke

The short-term plan includes:

l recycling paper, glass and cans from 140,000 homes through kerbside collections

l collecting garden waste from 100,000 homes for composting

l a £340,000, two-year marketing programme to urge residents to use their recycling bins

l preventing trade waste being dumped at domestic waste sites - companies which dump for free cost the Council £360,000 a

year and take up domestic landfill space.

However, it all depends on the district finding a way of recycling yet another 10,000 tonnes a year of 'problem' mixed waste. It also relies on the public meeting the recycling targets the Council has set itself.

The Council's environmental services director, Richard Wixey, said: "There are risks but our strategy is that we have to ensure a reasonable rate of increase in recycling each year, but we have to convince residents the service is regular and reliable."

Councillor Anne Hawkesworth, Bradford's executive member

for the environment, agreed: "There is no guarantee, but

the expectation is that this

will work.

"It is a viable plan in the short term as long as we get the co-operation of residents. In the long term, we do hit a danger level in 2008 but there are other options being worked up."