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Shipping plastic and paper waste to China for recycling causes lessenvironmental damage than binning it in the UK.

  Sending the waste more than 10,000 miles is still more efficient interms of carbon emissions than carting it off to landfill and usingbrand new materials to manufacture replacement goods.

  These are the findings of a study carried out by thegovernment-funded Waste & Recycling Action Plan (WRAP) and will bemusic to the ears of district councils the length and breadth ofthe land, under siege from local paper reporters keen to prove the'scandal' of waste exports.

  Shipping waste overseas is increasingly common the UK now collectsmore recycling than it has facilities to process domestically whilerapidly growing economies such as China are hungry for rawmaterials.

  Over the past decade, the export of waste paper and plastic bottleshas increased tenfold.

  Liz Goodwin, WRAP's chief executive, said: "It may seem strangethat transporting our unwanted paper and plastic bottles such adistance would actually be better for the environment but that iswhat the evidence from this study shows.

 "As more and more of this material is being sold to China we wantedto know the impact that was having on the environment, andspecifically whether the CO2 emissions from the transportoutweighed the benefits of the recycling.