Michael Gove’s plan to allow people to reuse items dumped by others is part of an attempt to reduce plastic waste by forcing producers to pay for its disposal

Michael Gove has a plan to boost post-Brexit Britain — open the nation’s waste dumps for business.

The environment secretary wants all council waste sites to let people pick over reject appliances, old TVs and half-used paint cans to find things they can use.

If some find the idea Dickensian, they could be right. Gove is a fan of Charles Dickens one of whose books, Our Mutual Friend, is about a family who become rich by sifting rubbish for valuables.

Gove said he wanted a change in the law on domestic dumps so that people could recover others’ cast-offs. “We must reduce the amount of material we waste,” he told a meeting. “At the moment if I take something to the dump for which I