Every household in the country puts a tonne of rubbish out for the bin men to collect each year. In Newcastle the people tasked with dealing with it are waging a war on waste. Landfill is the last resort and is now highly taxed. Recycling rates are now on the rise. And on the streets bin men and council enforcement officers take the fight to the people as they try and get them to throw away less and recycle more. But one time of year always pushes the entire industry to breaking point - Christmas.

The war against rubbish never stops for the waste men of Newcastle. But the things we throw away have never been worth so much. On the streets of the city no bin, skip or piece of scrap metal is safe from the opportunists who have learned how to turn rubbish into cash. But, as the waste men working at the city's tips know, the value of waste is not simply financial. Often it's the emotional value that means that one man's rubbish really is another's treasure.

As a nation we throw away more than ever. And with increasing landfill taxes and concerns over the environment, burying it all in a hole in the ground is no longer an option. Bigger and better solutions to our waste problems are needed and Newcastle and the Northeast are helping lead the way. Giant incinerators turn rubbish into electricity, industrial plants turn waste into compost and machines the size of jumbo jets shred old cars into fragments of metal that are sold around the world and reused. A new future for our rubbish is coming.