Surrey County Council has adopted its Surrey Waste Local Plan, which outlines how it plans to get rid of the county's annual household rubbish - which weighs the equivalent of about 180,000 hippos.

The plan took four years to complete, but is only a stopgap, as a replacement encompassing both waste and minerals is under way, and that will take another four years.

The waste plan was described by one councillor at yesterday's meeting as 'very sound' and by another as having 'undoubted failings'.

A lot has changed since Surrey's last waste plan 12 years ago – the recycling rate almost doubled from just over 30% in 2008 to nearly 60% in 2017.

Currently, most of residents' recyclables, such as paper, cardboard, glass, metal and plastic, are transported outside of the county.

Only 28% goes to Grundon Waste Management at Randalls Road, Leatherhead, while the rest is taken to Alton, Slough, north London, and 12% even goes as far as Birmingham.

SCC wants it to be managed within Surrey, and looked for a location to take collections from the north west of the county, leaving Leatherhead to serve the south east.

It prefers land next to Trumps Farm at Longcross, which sits in Runnymede's Green Belt.

The waste local plan reads: "The site has good access to the strategic road network and is located in an area near to existing waste management facilities."

It says there is 'a lack of suitable alternative sites outside the Green Belt'.

Other sites allocated to meet the need for new waste management facilities up to 2035 are:

Land to the north east of Slyfield Industrial Estate, Moorfield Road, Guildford;

Former Weylands sewage treatment works, Walton-on-Thames;

Land adjoining Leatherhead Sewage Treatment Works, Randalls Road, Leatherhead;

Oakleaf Farm, Horton Lane, Stanwell Moor;

Land at Lambs Business Park, Terra Cotta Road, South Godstone.

They will not automatically get planning permission. The last site is a new addition to the plan, a former clay quarry that Tandridge District Council is considering releasing from its Green Belt. Natalie Bramhall, cabinet member for environment and climate change, said: "There is only one new site, at Lambs Business Park in South Godstone; the remaining sites are all allocated in the current plan. "Trumps Farm is now allocated solely for a dry mixed recycling plant, and Weylands treatment works has additional protections for residents in respect of HGV routing, which are absent from the current plan." She added: "There have been four rounds of consultation where views on the plan were sought from residents, businesses and other stakeholders at various stages of its evolution." Godalming South councillor Peter Martin, who held Cllr Bramhall's portfolio when the last plan was adopted back in 2008, said he found the plan to be 'very sound'. All councillors agreed to adopt it on Tuesday (December 8th), except for Rachael Lake, who abstained. She objected to Weylands, which is in her Walton division. Ajoint minerals and waste local plan is expected in 2024 to replace the one just adopted, and is due to go out to consultation next summer. It will identify sites for mineral extraction and aims to make sure the county has enough minerals to provide infrastructure, buildings, energy and goods. This year around 540,000 tonnes of waste is expected to be collected from Surrey's kerbsides, community recycling centres and schools. The waste local plan also deals with waste from businesses in the county. They produce more than a third again (744,000 tonnes). There is a binding target to reduce landfill to a maximum of 10% of municipal waste by 2035.