Bottles, cans and papers account for around 40% of domestic waste

The closure of Tir John means that the city's waste will be dumped at Trecatty near Merthyr Tydfil and Withyhedge in Pembrokeshire.

To minimise what is transferred, people are being urged to re-double their efforts to recycle every item they can.

Swansea Council is launching new schemes to achieve this aim.

According to the council, it is people in their 20s and 30s that could be doing more to reduce what goes into landfill.

If you cut down on what you bring home in the first place you cut down on what you throw out Owain Griffiths

Since last July, a kerbside recycling scheme has been running across Swansea with cans, paper and glass collected every other week from outside homes.

It has helped the proportion of domestic waste that is recycled rise from 5.2% in 2000 to 22.2%, or 31,000 tonnes, now.

Waste minimisation officer Owain Griffiths estimated that if everyone in the city used the recycling scheme the figure would rise to nearly 40%.

"There are three basic types of people," he said.

"There are 30% who will recycle no matter what, 30% who will never recycle and that's the same throughout most of Europe and 40% who will, provided it's made easy for them, provided they are told what to do and when to do it."

He said almost every primary school in Swansea had been pushing the recycling message for some time and people in their later years were also generally good.

Tir John closes on Saturday 4 June because it is full

"It's the younger people who say they don't have the time," said Mr Griffiths.

In a bid to get more people on board, the council put a �500 prize draw to get students to use the kerbside scheme, groups and organisations are paid for recycling cans and a green waste collection trial for garden waste will be tested on 35,000 homes.

By 2010 the Welsh Assembly Government has told every local authority it must recycle 40% of domestic waste.

In the same year the National Audit Office for Wales has warned Wales may run out of places to tip.

The next big step in Swansea will be the opening of an In-Vessel Composter which will turn the city's kitchen waste, currently destined for landfill, into compost.

There will also be a drive towards waste minimisation - measures such as encouraging shoppers to re-use their plastic shopping bags and making conscious decisions to buy products with less packaging.