Councillors were meeting this morning to agree the final details of a multi-million pound waste contract.

Members of East Sussex County Council and Brighton and Hove City Council went into confidential session to thrash out the deal.

Both authorities expect to sign a £1 billion Private Finance Initiative contract with Onyx Aurora before the end of the month if councillors back the deal.

The waste plans attracted more than 16,000 objections, about 90 per cent opposed to a proposed incinerator at North Quay, Newhaven.

Lewes MP Norman Baker, meanwhile, has called for an incineration tax to reduce the amount of waste burnt and boost recycling.

Mr Baker, the Lib Dems' environment spokesman, said people would have no incentive to reduce what they throw away if rubbish was transported away from where they live.

He attacked Brighton and Hove City Council for backing a burner outside its boundaries, at Newhaven, and said the contract would be signed ahead of the public inquiry into the waste plans, due to start in May.

He said: "It is sheer arrogance by these councils to proceed in this way ahead of a public inquiry and I can assure my constituents that I will do all I can to stop an incinerator being built in Newhaven.

"I urge the Government to introduce an incineration tax which would fund doorstep recycling for every household in the country.

"We need to move away from a culture of bury it or burn it to a sustainable policy of recycling or composting."

As well as the Newhaven incinerator, Onyx Aurora wants to build a large composting plant at Golden Cross, near Hailsham, and four new recycling centres, at Brighton, Newhaven, Maresfield and Bexhill.

A modern anaerobic digestion plant would probably be built at Pebsham, Bexhill.

Only two of the sites the contractor wants to use are identified in the waste plans to be put before the public inquiry.

The councils said between 33 per cent and 35 per cent of rubbish would be recycled.