EXPERTS from around the UK will converge on the Central Science Laboratory at Sand Hutton, near York, on Monday to develop novel ways to tackle the country's growing waste mountain.

The conference, organised by the Mini-Waste Faraday Partnership, will provide a two-day forum for academics and businesses to discuss innovative approaches emerging from the academic and research base and look at how they can lead to industrial applications.

The conference will be addressed by Dr Alan Whitehead MP, co-chairman of the Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Waste Group.

Key areas of discussion will be improved production efficiency and reduced resource consumption, the conversion of waste to new products and the recovery or regeneration of resources from waste.

The event comes to the York area at a time when the issue of waste in the city was never more controversial.

More than 6,500 people have already responded to the Evening Press Bin It! campaign, calling on council chiefs to scrap their alternate waste pick up scheme in York.

The campaign calls for regular weekly rather than fortnightly collections to be reinstated, while at the same time supporting alternative methods of boosting recycling.

The conference also comes as North Yorkshire County Council announces plans to encourage waste recycling, including the intention to offer at least 95 per cent of residents a household waste recycling centre within 20 minutes of their home.

The event coincides with Mini-Waste's migration to the newly-announced DTI Resource Efficiency Knowledge Transfer Network.

It is being sponsored by RAY (Recycle Action Yorkshire) a new initiative developed by Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency, to stimulate collection, processing, manufacturing and procurement of recycled materials within the region.

RAY programme director Andrew Hartley said: "Events like this are vital in helping develop new approaches to dealing with waste, stimulating recycling and diverting useful resources away from landfill.

"Yorkshire and Humberside are looking to make real progress in the field of recycling and therefore it is very appropriate that this conference should be held within the region."

Updated: 10:32 Friday, December 02, 2005