A PUBLIC consultation paper on waste - which includes "thermal treatment" as a key means of dealing with household rubbish - has been slammed as a backward step.

Stop Kidderminster Incinerator - which celebrated when a planned burner on the town's British Sugar site was rejected last summer following widespread opposition - accused author Worcestershire County Council of reviving incineration.

Both SKI and Wyre Forest District Council labelled the four-page leaflet, circulated to most district homes last month, as biased and incomprehensible.

It describes thermal treatment as including "incineration with energy recovery and developing techniques such as gasification and pyrolysis". Five of the seven options for disposing of household rubbish include an element of thermal treatment.

SKI spokeswoman Clare Cassidy said: "We didn't spend all those years fighting an incinerator to just let them do this by the back door."

She stressed there was no need for an incinerator either in Wyre Forest or elsewhere and said the answer to waste was cutting packaging and boosting recycling.

And Miss Cassidy ridiculed the "appalling" way the county had consulted residents. "If you're going to consult with the public you need to tell them. They didn't tell them - they just stuck the document in with free adverts which come through your door.

"I've spoken to lots of people who didn't know who it was from and what it's about. Then you proceed to read it and it's incomprehensible and if you know anything about waste it's nonsense."

The district council's environment portfolio holder Howard Martin said his colleagues were dismayed by the leaflet.

He said: "Whether you call it thermal treatment or incineration it's still inflammatory. People don't want an incinerator on their doorstep."

Mr Martin went on: "You need a degree in physics or bio-chemistry to understand it."

Both SKI and the district council will press the county to extend public consultation and reiterate their opposition to incineration.

The county's principal planner Mark Bishop said there was a balance between providing people with enough technical information and baffling them with science.

He added Worcestershire's household waste was predicted to double by 2015 and recycling was not the whole solution.

But he stressed it was too early to say if and when any incinerators would be built.

He defended the distribution of leaflets as "cost effective" and said more than 2,000 people in Worcestershire and Herefordshire had so far responded. The consultation results will be presented to county councillors in the summer. To have your say visit www.worcestershire.gov.uk/PlanningBPEO