EFFORTS to reduce the amount of waste produced in Hertfordshire could be seriously hampered this year.

Changes to the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme (LTCS) could mean that funding for waste management initiatives is threatened.

Waste reduction and recycling campaigns like WasteAware now find themselves in limbo as three weeks into the new scheme, details of the programme still have not been released.

In his November pre-Budget speech Chancellor Gordon Brown announced that around one third of the money from the LTCS £47 million would continue to be paid to local community and environmental projects.

Yet the remainder £100 million over the next financial year and £110 million in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 would be replaced by a new public spending programme to encourage sustainable waste management.

This could cover anything from supplying councils with waste recycling vehicles and machinery to raising people's awareness of recycling issues.

Hertfordshire's WasteAware campaign has received more than £400,000 from the old scheme since it was formed in 1998. The group aims to raise awareness about growing problems of waste management in the county and highlight steps people can take to help the environment.

County Councillor Derrick Ashley, environment spokesman, said the changes could make a massive difference to the recycling work the county council carries out.

He said: "We're told that we have to make waste reduction a priority, but when we try and do something practical about it, we learn that there is the threat that funding will be cut and the remnants may be harder to secure.

"WasteAware has done great work in raising waste issues in Hertfordshire, but the potential problems in securing funding could pose real problems. We urgently need details of the new scheme."

WasteAware campaign co-ordinator Clare Hyland said that part of the problem for waste campaigners is that they did not have any information about the new scheme, making it difficult to plan ahead.

She said: "Due to the uncertainties in funding we have not been able to organise the WasteAware Poetry Competition for primary schools in the coming summer term.

"This increasingly popular competition has run for the past four years with over 700 entries last year.

"It encourages children to consider waste issues and produce some thoughtful poems which are then made into large posters for display at the county's 19 household waste recycling centres."

County Councillor Ashley has written to Environment Minister Michael Meacher to push for the information lacking in the Budget.