The council says burning rubbish will add power to the national grid

The city council is due to consider the idea in late September, after a public consultation exercise last December.

The council said 84% of the 3,000 who responded were in favour of the plan.

Friends of the Earth said the council was "burying its head in the ash." The mass-burn solution did not take account of new waste management technology.

Global warming

The council said the public had signalled its support for an energy from waste facility as the right choice to deal with waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill.

Radical steps were needed to drastically reduce the amount of landfill, which it said released methane gas - considered to be a main contributing factor in global warming.

The council added that other initiatives, such as encouraging more household recycling and devising ways of minimising waste production, would also be adopted.

It said the incinerator would involve "a process of burning waste under tightly-controlled conditions to supply power to the national grid and heat houses and businesses".

Councillor Steve Smith, who has responsibility for waste management, said the plan would be "safe, efficient and minimises our impact on the environment."

Web campaign

Friends of the Earth, which has opened a website inviting opposition to the plan, said they had formed a coalition with other organisations and individuals in the city to "fight the spectre of an incinerator."

They said the report to the council was clearly flawed. The risk analysis was described as "particularly poor", ignoring or underplaying a number of issues.

Among them was the fact that it can take up 16 years to get planning permission, which costs a lot of public money; and innovations in new waste management technologies without resorting to incineration.

They claimed that alternatives to incineration would create more jobs - thus benefiting the local economy - generate far less pollution, and increase public awareness of the value of recycling.