COUNTY Council chiefs today admitted a controversial waste incinerator was likely to be built in Lancashire -- after including its cost in a £300million plan.

Details of the private finance initiative have emerged, just weeks after Lancashire County Council told people in the county to recycle more if they did not want an incinerator.

Now they have admitted that the incinerator is still likely, even if people cut waste and improve recycling.

The company chosen to take part in the deal would be expected to create a fully integrated waste management system, which it would then rent back to Lancashire County Council.

They would be tasked with disposing of the rubbish, but would have to meet tough new targets set out in the newly-adopted Lancashire Municipal Waste Strategy.

At the heart of that plan is the recycling of 40 per cent of the 785,000 tonnes of rubbish Lancashire produces each year by 2005.

Burying rubbish which cannot be recycled will be abandoned in favour of alternative options -- with the favourite being incineration.

An incinerator would burn the rubbish and create energy -- but green groups claim they also produce dioxins which have been linked with cancer.

Groups such as ARROW, formed to fight the Lancashire proposals, have cited reports from Belgium, where incinerators exist, which allegedly showed that youngsters born nearby grew up with smaller genitals.

They say evidence from Besancon, in France, also shows people living near to their incinerator develop more soft-tissue sarcoma and non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma cancers than people in areas without incinerators.

There is also concern about what happens to the rubbish after it becomes ash. At a similar plant in Byker, Newcastle, it has been used to spread across allotments and paths in the city.

They claim the ash was found to have 800 times the 'safe' limit of dioxins in it. Soil around the plant was also found to have high levels of dioxins in it. Dioxins are a key link to cancer.

Plans for the Private Finance Initiative were originally discussed behind closed doors, despite an attempt by Pendle Lib Dem County Councillor David Whipp to have the matter discussed in public.

The £300million Private Finance Initiative - a government project to try and encourage more involvement of the private sector - will not cover the entire cost of sorting out Lancashire's waste problem.

A spokesman for Lancashire County Council said: "The £300million is the current best estimate of the capital funding required for the introduction of a fully integrated Waste Management system for the whole of Lancashire.

"If the extremely demanding waste minimisation and recycling targets are met, there will still be a need to deal with in excess of 300,000 tonnes of residual waste.

"At the moment the generally accepted way of dealing with such waste is by incineration with energy recovery and therefore the cost estimate includes a provision for the constructions of such a plant".

"However, over the next few years technologies may change and/or any private sector partner may propose another solution to that problem. It is for that reason that any need for an energy from waste plant will be reviewed in 2005.

A research project by Lancashire County Council showed 75 per cent of the public were in favour of an 'energy from waste' scheme.

But County Councillor Whipp said: "I think if people had been told that it actually meant using incinerators, the attitude would have been much different.

"The whole thing has been discussed in secret. If it hadn't been for ARROW, the county council wouldn't have been allowed to discuss it at its meeting. They would have shoved it through the back door.

"I think they are just trying to push through an incinerator on the quiet."

If the cost of the project soars beyond £300million, it could lead to a rise in council tax.

Details of any predicted rises were given to councillors behind closed doors.