Tories seek waste cutting deals

Mr Cameron appointed former Asda chairman Archie Norman, previously the Tories' shadow environment secretary, to develop a "responsibility deal" between business and government on moving towards a "zero waste" Britain.

Responsibility deals are one of the key recommendations of a report published by the Tories' working group on responsible business, which argues that government must work with business to end Britain's "throwaway culture" rather than try to enforce change with new laws.

The report comes a week after Chancellor Alistair Darling warned supermarkets that they had a year to cut the use of disposable plastic bags or face legislation.

The voluntary approach stops well short of the recommendations of last year's Conservative quality of life working group, led by environmentalist Zac Goldsmith and former minister John Gummer, which called for new disincentives on products which cannot be reused or recycled, as well as the extension of "producer responsibility" regulations to cover the disposal of a wider range of products at the end of their lives.

The report rejected regulation as "a blunt, expensive and ultimately imperfect way" of dealing with waste reduction, and called instead for a "non-bureaucratic, consensus-based and self-regulating" approach based on voluntary agreements with business. "We believe that encouraging more responsible business practice does not require significant new legislation," it said.

Government efforts to reduce the 330 million tonnes of rubbish produced annually in the UK have been "bureaucratic and sluggish", said the report. And European Union producer responsibility directives have been ineffective because they cover only a small range of products, like batteries, vehicles and electronic equipment.

"Instead of relying on penalties and further regulation we need to use this opportunity to rethink our waste strategy and find alternative solutions," said the report.

Mr Cameron said: "We have seen over the past decade how ill-thought-out regulation adds unnecessary costs and burdens to business.

"That's why I'm delighted to back the central argument in this report: that by working together constructively with business we can achieve far more than through top-down, over prescriptive micro-management."