Mr Jones, a former director of the waste firm Biffa and now an adviser to environment ministers and the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, also dismissed kerbside recycling collections in many areas as “stupid” because they mixed together different materials, rendering them useless for recycling.

He suggested that much of the country’s waste should simply be burnt to generate electricity.

Telegraph: Recycling ‘could be adding to global warming’

Taxpayers are facing a multi-million-pound bill to store 100,000 tons of waste paper and cardboard as the British recycling industry plunges into crisis.

Rubbish carefully sorted by householders is piling up in vast warehouses as the market for waste paper collapses, and experts have warned that the mountain of garbage could double in the next three months.

Waste paper is now virtually unsellable, so the private firms contracted to deal with household rubbish have been forced to put it into storage, incurring huge bills.

Daily Mail: ‘Recycling crisis: Taxpayers foot the bill for UK’s growing waste paper mountain as market collapses’

Britain is menaced by a new threat, giant heaps of rubbish that nobody wants, but that can no longer be burned or buried, thanks to a combination of environmental fears and – above all – EU landfill regulation.

The vast and growing bill for storing all this useless trash will have to be met by taxpayers who have quite enough trouble finding the money for things they want and need, without having to rent temporary housing for millions of tons of tin cans and cardboard.

The story of how this happened is the usual tragic saga of good intentions turning into inflexible regulations, and of unforeseen consequences.

Mail on Sunday Comment: ‘The EU’s red tape ties our hands again’