A GREEN party member has criticised hazardous waste collection services across four boroughs.

Darren Johnson accused Greenwich, Bexley, Bromley and Lewisham of being "complacent" about the amounts of waste, including asbestos, pesticides, petrol and creosote, collected each year.

Mr Johnson was reacting to the news that London councils only collected 200 of the 10,500 tonnes of hazardous waste produced by the capital in 2005.

The Corporation of London provides a collection service of household hazardous waste, by arrangement on behalf of all the boroughs.

Mr Johnson made a request for the figures during the London Mayor's Question Time session last year.

Mr Johnson said: "The fact that tens of thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste have been going missing for years shows how complacent these boroughs have been about dumping hazardous waste in someone else's back garden.

"The Government and regulatory authorities call this hazardous waste for a reason. Most of it is fairly low-level risk, but it is the cumulative effect of thousands of tonnes, which is worrying.

"This waste is likely to be causing pollution by being dumped in landfills, burned or entering our waterways."

"These boroughs need to put in place appropriate household hazardous waste collection services to prevent householders from either storing the waste indefinitely or disposing of in their rubbish or down the drain.

"There are people who want to dispose of their hazardous waste legitimately but stumble over the cumbersome bureaucracy that is in place, which requires them to take a number of steps to arrange a collection of hazardous waste by the Corporation of London, including form filling, arranging times to be at home and packing containers in sealed boxes."

Mr Johnson is calling for the immediate scrapping of what he calls a "bureaucratic and extremely complex collection system and its replacement with something simpler and consumer friendly."

In response to Mr Johnson's query, Mr Livingstone also said: "In addition to the collection service offered by the Corporation of London, most reuse and recycling centres accept some household hazardous wastes.

"Waste composition studies indicate household hazardous waste makes up approximately 1 per cent of the household waste stream,which is disposed of to incineration or landfill.

"Anecdotal evidence suggests that, where appropriate household hazardous waste collection services are not in place, householders either store the waste indefinitely or dispose of in their rubbish or down the drain (into the sewer system).

"I have major concerns that household hazardous waste collection is poorly managed by London's boroughs, which means it is likely to be causing pollution by being dumped in landfills, burned or entering our waterways."