THE biggest campaign to cut down on waste ever to be launched in Worcestershire got under way at the Hill and Moor site near Pershore this week.

Severn Waste Services' £600,000 'Welcome to Our Future' campaign is urging the public to rethink their attitude to rubbish.

The campaign will run for up to five years and will target householders, individuals at work, teachers and schoolchildren.

It aims to build up awareness about the importance of managing waste and to encourage people to reduce, re-use and recycle rubbish.

The campaign, mainly financed by landfill tax funding, is being organised by Severn Waste Services, the prime manager of waste in Worcestershire and Herefordshire.

Householders in Worcestershire alone create enough to fill a 23-storey building the size of a football pitch each year, so increased awareness, the company says, is vital.

Severn Waste's campaign manager Sue Fyleman said: "We throw away 373,000 tonnes of rubbish in the two counties every year. We are a throwaway society and getting worse. The amount of rubbish is rising at the rate of three per cent a year. Only 13.3 per cent is re-cycled in Worcestershire and 11.9 per cent in Herefordshire.

"We hope the campaign will boost public awareness of waste issues, encourage changes in behaviour and generally drive home the message that we can all make a real difference."

Philip Sherratt, area director of Severn Waste Services, explained why his company, which owns a landfill site and makes its living out of managing waste, so strongly supports a waste minimisation campaign.

He said: "The truth is that cutting down on waste is implicit in our 25-year contract, to manage domestic waste for the two county councils.

"If we fail to do our best to help the councils meet their waste targets, they will be penalised by central government and we will suffer too.

"Not only will the authorities fail, but the communities we serve will be the losers.

"We are part of our community too and so we are committed to the most environmentally sound waste management practices with two ISO 14001 environmental management credentials to prove it.

"It is not so strange that Severn Waste decided to pay more than lip service to the need for a waste minimisation campaign and put its money where its mouth is.

"It isn't just £500,000 in landfill tax credits from the Severn Waste Environmental Fund that will be funding this five-year-long campaign, it includes 10 per cent from our own bottom line."

During the campaign the company will be urging the public to recycle a large range of 'rubbish' including paper, glass, cans and garden waste. Severn Waste will also be targeting parents to convert to biodegradable nappies for their children.