Gordon Brown will use next month's pre-budget statement to signal Labour's biggest hike in green taxes.

The chancellor is planning to double the tax on landfill rubbish for local authorities and open the door to waste charges targeted at consumers, reveals the Guardian.

Treasury officials are divided on the extent that landfill tax should jump to encourage recycling by councils: hawkish Whitehall greens back a jump from £13 per tonne to £34 by April 2004, doves support a £5 rise in 2004 with incremental £5 increases to £34 by 2007.

The newspaper suggests that extra taxes could help plug Brown's spending shortfall with tough environmental measures netting the exchequer an extra £1.2 billion. Government is also expected to give the green light to a levy - up to 10 pence - on plastic supermarket shopping bags.