Households in the capital that recycle could find themselves being paid to do so under plans revealed by the Conservative Party.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne announced the scheme this week during an event in London hosted by environmental group Green Alliance.

In a speech to the organisation, Mr Osbourne said the government's approach, of using fines to force people to recycle, was "old-fashioned" and did not work, as it encouraged irresponsible behaviour such as flytipping.

Instead, the Tories plan is based on the success of a project in the United States which sees people given financial incentives to recycle their household waste.

In America, as in the UK, councils have to pay landfill tax for every tonne of waste they fail to recycle. However, certain firms offer to reduce councils' landfill tax bill by pushing up recycling rates and then splitting the savings.

The companies then use this money to pay households up to $50 (£25) a month for their recycling.

According to the BBC, one firm set up four years ago, called RecycleBank, has gone from working in just a couple of streets to having more than 150,000 customers in nine states.

According to Mr Osbourne, this scheme has increased the amount of household waste being recycled by more than 200 per cent.

"Instead of using sticks, we can use carrots in-stead. Instead of punitive taxes, we can use financial incentives," he said.

Mr Osbourne said the scheme's pay incentive had an important equity dimension. "While the poorest households were previously the least likely to recycle, as soon as they start receiving a financial incentive for recycling, they typically become amongst the most likely households to recycle," he said.

In 2005, the most recent year for which comparable figures are available across the EU, UK households sent 22.6 million tonnes of rubbish to landfill.

The Conservatives are working with Local Government Association, the Mayor of London and Conservative local authorities such as Windsor and Maidenhead to establish how paying the public to recycle schemes might be implemented in the UK.

  • Will a financial incentive encourage more people to recycle their household waste. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.