Waste officials hope the amount of dumped rubbish will decrease

A Waste Management Partnership is being formed by the county and local councils to help recycled and composted household waste rise from 20% to 50%.

In recent years, more than �5m in external funding has been secured to help exceed national targets.

It is hoped the partnership will set out local responsibilities and help to bring in additional government money.

All local authorities in England are expected to meet a national recycling target of 25% by 2005-6.

Chris Millar, chair of the Waste Management Members' Forum, said: "The partnership is an important step forward in achieving the challenging targets in the Waste Management Strategy.

At their last meeting, forum members agreed in principle to support the adoption of a memo to set out the terms of the partnership.

Mr Millar said the new body "will speed up and improve the process as well as clarifying the role and contribution of each authority".