THE horrendous future cost of dealing with waste produced by Buckinghamshire's 500,000 people has been revealed.

Buckinghamshire County Council (BCC) chiefs have said that depending on the amount of help they get from the Government, dealing with waste could add 6.1 to 8.3 per cent to council tax levels.

As the Free Press reported last month, BCC will have to build one or more incinerators or heat treatment plants, in order to reduce the volume of waste dumped in landfill sites.

At the worst guess, the cost of building and running these plants could be as high as £650million over a 24 year contract period. At best it would be £327m.

Council leader David Shakespeare said: "The amount of tax payers' money needed to cope is absolutely horrendous."

He said waste could be dealt with by creating less, by recycling more and by reducing the volume going to landfill.

He added: "The strategy for dealing with it will be expensive, but the cost of doing nothing is even higher."

The cost of doing nothing would be even higher than dealing with the problem, adding 9.5 per cent to council tax levels. That is because the council will be fined £150 for every tonne of waste over target dumped in a hole. By 2012 that will cost £10.6m a year. That is on top of landfill tax it already pays currently £18 a tonne, or £1m plus a year, and rising annually to £35.

Other councils face similar problems, as the Government passes on the costs of the £500,000-a-day fines it faces from Europe if it does not meet UK targets.

Decisions about what to build, how to pay for it and where anything should be built, have to be made quickly because the plants take years to commission.

At present the council is meeting its target of recycling 30 per cent of household waste. But the Government is reducing the amounts that can be sent to landfill sites and the county will start missing targets in 2008.

Chief executive officer Chris Williams said: "We need to have the facility up and running as soon after 2008/9 as possible."

The cabinet's immediate problem now is how to pay. Head of finance Tracie Evans said there were two ways a contract with a private company (PFI) and or Prudential Borrowing (PB).

Under PFI she said a private company designed, built and operated the plant.PB meant the council borrowed the money at favourable interest rates.