The Strategic Waste Fund grant was announced yesterday alongside awards for Moray council (12.8m), Angus council (21m) and Perth & Kinross (20.7m). And, the Scottish Executive said an award for Dundee city council is to be announced shortly.
”We are serious about cutting down on landfill – that is why we are providing this funding. “
– deputy environment minister Allan Wilson
Announcing the funding, Scotland's deputy environment minister Allan Wilson said: “This funding will help ensure many households and businesses across Scotland have access to recycling facilities.
“We are serious about cutting down on landfill – that is why we are providing this funding. But we need everyone in Scotland to play a part,” he added.
Edinburgh's massive boost is set to transform the city's waste management service until 2020. It is expected to fund plans to provide recycling services for tenement and high-rise households as well as expanding kerbside collections, the provision of on-street recycling banks and the creation of six new recycling centres across the city.
Kerbside
One of the first initiatives for the city will be the expansion of its green waste collections, currently provided for 12,000 households, to cover 100,000 homes in the next three years. A kerbside service for plastic, glass and cans is also planned, and for the collections of paper run by Cheshire recycling, bags are to be replaced with 38-litre boxes for 120,000 homes.
Working with Cheshire Recycling and Berryman, Scotland's capital currently recycles about 11% of its household waste – slightly above the national average. But, hopes are the 83m grant will allow Edinburgh to reach a 27% rate by 2006/07, surpassing the Scottish Executive's 25% target for that year.
Officers at Edinburgh city council are currently looking over applications from more than 40 waste management firms to help take forward the city's ambitions in a 1.5 billion contract set to run until 2020 (see letsrecycle.com story).
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