Oxfordshire is becoming the dustbin of West London with 60 containers of waste now arriving daily by train.

The giant landfill site at Sutton Courtenay has agreed to bury 240,000 tonnes of waste a year from the bins of Londoners.

The news will come as a blow to conservationists anxious to encourage Oxfordshire householders to recycle more, to reduce the amount of waste going into the ground.

The containers of domestic waste go directly to the site from Brentford. The London waste will form the bulk of the 450,000 tonnes buried annually at Sutton Courtenay, far exceeding the 100,000 tonnes from Oxfordshire.

Green party county councillor Craig Simmons said he was unhappy about the London deal.

He said: "We believe in the proximity principle. People need to deal with their own waste and its impact locally. They should have landfill sites within their own borders in London and learn to live within their own limits, rather than exporting their problems."

The 750-acre Sutton Courtenay site is one of the largest landfills in Britain, and one of only three to be served by its own rail link. Extensive gravel extractions mean it is full of ready-made craters.

Margaret MacKenzie, county councillor for Sutton Courtenay and some surrounding villages, said: "There are holes so deep you could fit County Hall into them. We want them filled in. So what can you do if you do not fill these enormous holes with rubbish? It is a semi-industrial wasteland, of no beauty whatsoever."

However, villagers have suffered over the years as a result of flies, rats, seagulls and the stench of rubbish.

Mrs MacKenzie said: "I had a complaint this week from someone in Milton Road. But I have to say the number of complaints have fallen. We set up a liaison committee which meets every six weeks in the summer. They now pay attention to what we say."

The London contract was won by the Waste Recycling Group, which acquired the site from Hanson Waste Management earlier this year.

WRG Central managing director Steve Bruce-Jones said that there was nothing new about Sutton Courtenay taking London's waste. It had stopped only because a contract was lost two years ago.

He said: "Sutton Courtenay is one of the biggest landfill sites in the south, at a time when suitable sites are beginning to run out.

"The idea of digging out a massive hole in London for landfill is really not feasible. You have to have a national strategy.

"What you cannot get away from is that 82 per cent of domestic waste still goes into landfill, compared to ten per cent recycled, and eight per cent incinerated.

"Of course what we do here has some environmental impact. But the environmental damage is caused by the people who create the waste in the first place."