Scottish Waste Advisory Group holds meeting to tackle poor recycling rates

The Group has been set up by the Scottish Executive to promote waste minimisation, with “concerted efforts not just from public bodies, but from the business world and from individual households needed to tackle the problem,” said Environment and Rural Development minister Ross Finnie.

Mr Finnie admitted that Scotland faced a huge challenge to move to more sustainable waste management practises and applied effort was “needed to tackle Scotland’s poor recycling record” as a vast bulk of Scotland’s municipal waste still ends up being landfilled.

The NWS sets out a programme to make better use of resources by, for example, promoting waste minimisation and recycling. According to Mr Finnie, work so far has focused on planning the way forward concerning municipal wastes. However, he : “Now we need to broaden the focus, for example to include all businesses and industrial wastes. We also need to address public attitudes – to see how householders and business can be encouraged to take responsibility for reducing waste – and to be sure we are doing all we can to promote markets for recycled products,” said Mr Finnie.

The Group contains representatives from the public and private and voluntary sectors including: SEPA – the Scottish equivalent to England’s Environment Agency, Scottish Enterprise, Institute of Wastes Management Scottish Centre Council, Scottish Environmental Services Association, Remade Scotland, Scottish Waste Awareness Group.

Campaign

Today the Scottish Executive also launched its ‘Do a little, change a lot’ awareness campaign. The five-week long advertising campaign launched today will highlight the small measures that can be taken to turn around the country’s poor recycling record.

Mr Finnie commented on necessary changes needed to what he sees as a throwaway society. “The throwaway society is unsustainable. For too long we have all been filling our wheelie bins without much thought about where our waste will end up,” he said.

Mr Finnie continued to say: “We have to demonstrate that solutions don’t necessarily mean extra hassle for householders. Waste is a big problem, but alongside local authorities, retailers and other action groups we will show that Scotland can and will get to grips with it and shed the image of being the ‘dirty man of Europe’”.