Jetting off on just one summer holiday is so bad for global warming that it wipes out the benefits of 20 years of recycling, a new study has shown.

Although householders are encouraged to save and sort their rubbish, new research from the University of Lund, Sweden, and the University of British Columbia, Canada, has shown that it has far less impact when compared with cutting down on flights, ditching the car or switching to a vegetarian diet.

In its green strategy, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, (Defra) claims recycling is vital for lowering greenhouse emissions and councils have brought in an array of complex rules and bins for collecting and separating refuse. The UK has also signed up to EU targets to recycle at least 50pc of household waste by 2020

But the new study, published in Environmental Research Letters, argues that governments and schools must do more to communicate the most effective ways for people to reduce their carbon footprint rather than concentrating on practices which have little impact.