Recycling boxes will help to cut the mountain of waste collected from Wear Valley households.
A district council link with Teesdale and Derwentside means that each home will be given a 55-litre box for paper, cans, glass and textiles.
These will be picked up every two weeks, on the same day as the normal refuse collection service.
Wear Valley recycled 4.38 per cent of its waste last year and has set a ten per cent target for 2003, rising to 18 per cent in 2005. But it was recently criticised by North-East Euro MP Martin Callan-an who said it had one of the UK's worst recycling records.
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