BURY North MP David Chaytor has made a new bid to increase the amount of recycled paper that newspapers use.

Last year his "Recycled Content On Newsprint Bill" ran out of Parliamentary time.

Now he has presented an updated version of the proposal to the Commons, once again with the backing of 260 MPs of all parties.

Under the proposal, by 2010, every newspaper would have to contain at least 80pc recycled newsprint.

Mr Chaytor said: "This would give a tremendous boost to the recycling industry and create thousands of new jobs across the country.

Waste

"More and more people want to recycle because they understand that we can't go on producing and dumping increasing amounts of waste. No one wants to live near waste dumps and incinerators.

"At the moment, the newspapers we buy are made from about 40pc waste paper. If my Bill becomes law, this would increase to 80pc over the next 10 years.

"This would create nearly 10,000 new jobs in recycling. It would also save about £175m a year on the costs of imports from Scandinavian forests which are rich in endangered wildlife."

He added: "My Bill would significantly reduce the amount of paper which is dumped. It would also help bolster the market for waste paper and give a new lease of life to paper banks and kerbside paper collections."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.