The north has trash issues, too. The EU has cited France and the Netherlands, among others, for failing to comply with landfill rules. A distrust of intrusive regulation has helped to keep Britain close to the bottom of the recycling league. Even so, dumping places are growing scarce. "Within nine years we won't have any holes left," says Sandra Issar of the Local Government Association in London. Her solution: some form of pay-as-you-throw tax that charges householders according to the amount dumped.

Two dozen area communities could be saving money under a program promoted by the state Department of Environmental Protection as a way to reduce the amount of trash hauled to landfills or burned in Wheelabrator's waste-to-energy operation.

Known as "pay as you throw," the program has been around for more than a decade. Residents buy special garbage bags or stickers for their trash barrels so that the more they toss, the more they pay. Conversely, the more they recycle, the more they save.

State officials said communities that institute the program find as much as a 35 percent reduction in the amount of trash they ship out.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under sharp attack for failing to address the nation's garbage woes, is stepping up its efforts to deal with urban waste, the chairman of a new federal panel says. …

He pushed recycling and "pay as you throw" programs to answer some urban garbage woes — two ideas already are being implemented in Seattle.