A further 14,000 brown 240 litre bins as well as supporting leaflets and calendars are being delivered over the next fortnight to households in the west of the Scottish capital. These households will join the 12,000 already receiving the fortnightly green waste service in mid-July, and by the end of this year the council hopes to cover 55,000 properties.
The Lothians and Borders region of Scotland has set targets to cover 30% of households with kerbside green collections by 2010, 40% by 2013 and 60% by 2020.
Councillor Robert Cairns, the Edinburgh council's executive member for environmental service, said: “I am delighted that by the end of the summer we will be well on our way to reaching the target of 30% green kerbside collections and we are working on attaining the target of 40% by 2006. This is well before the 2013 deadline and shows the council's strong commitment to recycling in Edinburgh.”
Funding for the green waste collections came from a 83 million grant from the Scottish Executive's Strategic Waste Fund announced earlier this year (see letsrecycle.com story).
Landfill reduction
Edinburgh's garden waste collection is part of its strategy to meet targets set out in the EU Landfill Directive, which require a reduction of 75% in the bio-degradable municipal waste landfilled by 2020.
“Currently too much of the city's garden waste goes to landfill sites instead of being composted,” Cllr Cairns said. “This service is allowing residents to recycle their garden waste on their own doorstep but of course we need the public to support the scheme so we can cut waste in the city.”
Last year, the first 12,000 households on the scheme, which runs from March to November, collected around 1,800 tonnes of material for composting. By the end of this year the council hopes the green waste collections will help boost its recycling and composting rate to 27%. And by 2007, the city council aims to collect around 14,000 tonnes of green waste per year.
Green waste collected in Edinburgh is shredded and composted into soil conditioner and other types of compost by West Lothian-based Tarmac Recycling.
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