Council tax bills across Sussex will soar unless its local authorities dramatically improve their miserable recycling records, the Government has

warned.

Ben Bradshaw, a junior environment minister, said residents would "pay the price" because of his plans to hike the tax for dumping waste in landfill sites.

The so-called "landfill tax escalator" is due to rise by £3 per tonne every year from its current level of £18 per tonne, until it reaches £35 per tonne.

At that point, the tax will be almost double the current level punishing local councils which continue to use environmentally-damaging landfill.

During a Commons debate, Mr Bradshaw described a local authority recycling rate of less than 20 per cent as "depressing".

In 2004/5 Brighton and Hove City Council recycled just 19.8 per cent. East Sussex County Council performed slightly better, recycling 23.95 per cent. West Sussex County Council recycled 25.8 per cent.

Mr Bradshaw said: "There is no excuse for it and MPs may want to take a stark warning back to their constituents and local authorities.

"As the landfill escalator hits in as one of the major financial incentives, council tax payers will pay the price for the poor performance of their local authorities.

"It is not merely good for the environment to recycle, reuse and compost it is, in the long run, also cheaper for council tax payers."

Local authorities with poor recycling rates can "buy" allowances to dump more waste in landfill. But this will also cost local taxpayers, Mr Bradshaw added.

Across the country, Britain currently recycles 22 per cent of its household waste while Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Belgium all recycle more than half.

The department for the environment, food and rural affairs facing tough EU targets to avoid landfill is drawing up a waste strategy to improve that performance.

It proposes cutting the amount of waste put into landfill sites from more than 72 per cent today to 25 per cent by 2020.

However, to achieve that, the strategy suggests 27 per cent of all waste should be burned by 2020 compared with nine per cent today which would involve building controversial new incinerators like the one planned for Newhaven in East Sussex.