HOW would you feel if you learned of plans to create a new landfill site near your home? The betting is that most of us would be contacting our local councillors, and joining residents’ action groups, before the week was out.

So the news that five locations across Wirral have been identified as potential new landfill sites will be greeted with dismay by anyone living in these areas.

The areas selected – which include Irby Quarry and Mill, the North Wirral Brickworks, and Carr Lane, in Hoylake and Meols ward – are likely to arouse strong feelings in those who live in these areas or enjoy visiting them. No one wants to see a landfill site on their doorstep and the arguments against them will, no doubt, be vociferous.

But everyone, from homeowners to businesses, generates rubbish that has to be dealt with somehow. So the quest-ion is: Just what are councils supposed to do with the huge amounts of waste they are asked to dispose of every week?

More than ever, local councils need residents and businesses to reduce the amount of rubbish they generate, through recycling and reusing mater- ials. This is something councils increas- ingly promote and yet such initiatives often lead to criticism about the number of wheelie bins we are required to juggle.

Surely, given the choice of multiple wheelie bins, or a new landfill site at the end of the road, most people would acc- ept the bins with a murmur of thanks?

Increased recycling leaves councils to dispose of remaining waste in as efficient and environmentally-friendly a way as possible; the preferred option being incineration with energy recovery. Alongside the landfill plans, a separate scheme for such a plant, generating elec- tricity by burning rubbish, is being con- sidered for Merseyside right now. Such a facility should be welcomed; costly landfill sites must become a last resort.