A council spent more than £5,000 on fact-finding visits to do with waste disposal and travelled further than a round-the-world trip.

A group of Essex county councillors and officers clocked up roughly 28,189 miles on trips to China, Barcelona, Dusseldorf, Milan, Madrid, Hanover, Leicester and Tel Aviv between 2002 and 2007.

The equatorial circumference of the world is about 24,902 miles.

The list of visits was included in documentation for the authority's private finance initiative (PFI) project, which it hopes will secure £90 million in Government cash to invest in recycling and waste disposal over 25 years.

Rivenhall has been controversially included in the project as an example location for a waste-burning energy plant.

Information released through the Freedom of Information Act revealed that Essex County Council spent about £5,534.32 on the trips.

James Abbott, district councillor for Bradwell, Rivenhall and Silver End, and chairman of the Essex Green Party, said: "You don't necessarily need to do physical trips to all these places.

"It conflicts with all the talk of reducing carbon footprints and climate change."

A county council spokesman said: "Spending £5,534 over five years to make sure we get it right before millions are invested was felt justified, as the cost if we get it wrong will be far higher both financially and environmentally."

Nearly 450,000 tonnes of waste is sent to landfill every year in Essex, and the authority must look abroad for solutions other than landfill or mass-burn incineration, she said.

The spokesman said the China trip related to a visit by Graham Tombs, director for environment and commerce, to address a meeting of environmental specialists looking at waste management in Nanjing, where he spoke about Europe's approach and options other than landfill.