First to put the boot in was The Daily Telegraph. In a front page story it reported that more than 200,000 tonnes of household rubbish meant for recycling was being dumped in landfill sites every year.

According to the paper, three out of four councils admitted sending at least some of their recyclable waste to landfill or incinerators during 2007 with the amount dumped during 2008 and 2009 expected to rise sharply due to the collapse in the prices paid for waste material.

As the piece explained, the economic downturn has led to a sharp fall in the demand for recyclable material, leaving councils with large amounts of waste that they're unable to sell for recycling.

It was a depressing piece, made worse by The Mail On Sunday running another front page story on Britain's waste paper mountain, arguing that taxpayers are facing a multimillion pound bill to store 100,000 tonnes of waste paper as the country's recycling industry plunges into crisis.

It warned that rubbish carefully sorted by householders is piling up in vast warehouses as the market for waste paper, as well as scrap metal and recycled plastic, has collapsed.

While much of what the papers say is true, don't let that put you off recycling your household waste. According to Jane Kennedy,
the Environment Minister, 90 per cent of local authorities are meeting or exceeding their recycling targets and more than 9.7 million tonnes of waste was recycled in the last year.

That alone is worth a big pat on the back, in my opinion. And while there has been a drop in demand for recyclable waste it's not expected to last and it shouldn't deter people from loading up their recycling bin every couple of weeks.

In the meantime, to help out, make sure you avoid over-packaged goods, compost your food waste and find creative ways to reuse what's left over.