Norman Baker's suggestion (The Argus, July 3) that doorstep recycling avoids the need for an incinerator does not add up - at least not the way Lib-Dem Lewes District Council is setting about it.

Its scheme doesn't include glass or cardboard and does not even encourage householders to compact recycled waste to keep down the cost of collection.

Some glass will be taken to collection centres but much of it will end up in landfill, where the cost will be passed on to the Tory county council which pays a tariff based on weight - and glass is heavy.

Even when this scheme is operational, Lewes will only recycle 40 per cent of its rubbish. What does he suggest we do with the rest of it?

Incineration is most undesirable, not least because once an incinerator is built it has to be run flat-out to avoid creating dioxins - and this will discourage recycling.

But Mr Baker is wrong to suggest that a Newhaven incinerator will import French rubbish. Authorities in Seine Maritime have said the reverse is true.

With an over-large incinerator in Dieppe, they may look to import rubbish from England - and this might provide Sussex with an interim solution when landfill runs out.

There are ways of achieving zero waste targets and initiatives. The Moulsecoomb centre can make an important contribution.

But it requires a comprehensive and imaginative plan, co-ordination between all the authorities, support from the Government to set it up and an honest presentation of the cost to the taxpayers who, one way or another, are going to have to pay extra for it.

-John Stockdale, Lewes