A FORMER city councillor who will stand for Parliament for Labour at the next General Election has attacked a major plank of his own party's policy on waste treatment.

Alderman Paul Smith was a Labour councillor for Whitchurch Park and is the prospective Parliamentary candidate for Bristol West.

He is calling on the Labour-led city council to reject the possibility of a "mass- burn incinerator" at Avonmouth.

Tonight the council will debate its decision to apply to the Government for £80 million funding for the long- term treatment of waste in the area.

Mr Smith backs this Private Finance Initiative (PFI) bid but is opposed to the incinerator as an option, a view which is shared by the Liberal Democrats and at least one Conservative councillor.

Mr Smith, who is chief executive of the Furniture Reuse Network and director of Reconomy CIC, which is involved in recycling, reuse and composting, explained: "Incinerators may have been the answer 40 years ago, but they aren't now because technology has moved on.

"There are other technologies we can use and the items best suited to feeding incinerators are those that can be effectively, reused, recycled or composted."

No technology will be decided on for another two years and an incinerator may not be chosen.

Nevertheless, as one of a number of options it does form part of the PFI bid that Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire councils are proposing.

Leading city councillor John Bees said it would be mad to throw away the chance of an £80m, interest- free loan to solve the region's waste problems.

Finance chief Mr Bees said rejecting the chance to bid for PFI funding next month could close the door on half the money needed to deal with the area's waste.

The Liberal Democrat opposition on the city council wants to stall the bid while new technologies are given a chance to prove themselves.

Otherwise, they fear, Bristol could end up being forced to deal with all the household rubbish it cannot recycle by burning it in a large incinerator.

But Labour, which runs the hung council with just 25 seats out of 70, insists it, too, is keen to see whether rivals to an incinerator will work.

But it says a tried and tested technology has to be used as a "reference project" for the bid the three councils plan to make to the Government before the October 31 deadline.

If the three councils fail to secure PFI cash, Mr Bees believes, they will still have to find a solution to the question of how to dispose of the region's waste but council tax payers will have to foot a larger bill for the answer.

The city council's waste policy has been "called in" by opposition councillors for and was due to be the subject of a major debate tonight.

It is not yet clear which way the city's 13 Tory councillors, who hold the balance of power, will vote.

But Avonmouth Conservative councillor Spud Murphy is known to be opposed to any scheme which includes the possibility of an incinerator.

And group leader Richard Eddy has recently made statements which indicate he might be prepared to withdraw support from Labour on this issue.

If this happens, Labour may feel not only that it cannot continue with a waste project the majority of Bristol City Council has rejected.

The party may be prepared to throw in the towel altogether, offering the Lib Dems the chance to take power.

Lib Dem group leader Barbara Janke refused just such an opportunity in May, when the Tories withdrew general support from the minority Labour administration.

If no one wants to take the reins, the council could see a return to the situation in 2003 in which a stalemate lasting several weeks was followed by the parties getting together to form a "rainbow" coalition to run the council.