Scottish councils urged to target hard-to-reach properties

Entitled an ‘Analysis of Scottish Recycling Schemes 2007/08' the report prepared by development agency Remade Scotland found that while recycling rates in Scotland had improved by 11% compared to 2006/07, there were a number of factors which could help improve performance.

However, the study acknowledges that in order to achieve later recycling and landfill diversion targets in 2013 and beyond alternative waste treatment technologies would be required, alongside kerbside recycling and food waste collections.

The report was published as another government-funded body, Waste Aware Scotland, also put out a study claiming that sending recycling advisors to households could also improve performance.

Commenting on the publications, environment secretary Richard Lochhead said that a total of eight local authorities had hit their target of recycling 40% of waste by 2010 and that the Government would continue to work to meet challenging future targets.

He said: “The findings of these reports provide further evidence that Scotland is taking the right steps towards becoming a zero waste society. Having already met our first EU Landfill target 18 months early, it is encouraging to learn that recycling rates across Scotland continue to improve.”

Remade Scotland

The Remade Scotland study was researched by Caledonian Environment Centre, which is part of Glasgow Caledonian University. It assessed the performance of 31 out of 32 Scottish local authorities, and claimed that their recycling performance could be improved by:

• Collecting recycling containers more frequently to increase yield, with wheeled bins collected fortnightly and recycling boxes collected weekly.

• Expanding schemes and/or introducing tailored schemes for difficult and hard-to-reach properties to cover a higher percentage of households;

• Customising measures reflecting the specific socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of certain areas in order to best engage with householders;

• And, also introducing alternate weekly collections to reduce residual waste.

The research found that the amount of recyclable material collected from the household waste stream in 2007/08 was over 860,000 tonnes, while municipal waste arisings had fallen by 0.6% from 3.437 million tonnes in 2006/07 to 3.414 million tonnes in 2007/08.

Findings

In the report, Remade Scotland claimed that the amount of recyclable material collected at the kerbside had risen from 414,164 tonnes in 2006/07 to 457,708 tonnes in 2007/08 – a rise of 11%.
And, in assessing recycling provisions, the report found that all of the councils provided a dry recycling service, while 84% performed a kerbside collection of at least one material and 63% of all households had access to a garden waste service.

The report also assessed material capture from the country's 195 household waste and recycling centres and 3,072 recycling points, and found that a total of 357,882 tonnes of dry recyclable material was collected, with household waste and recycling centres accounting for 79% of the total material collected and 21% from recycling points.

Professor Jim Baird, director of the Caledonian Environment Centre and Remade Scotland Programme Director, said: “There is clear evidence that Scottish local authorities are increasing the amount of recyclates collected through increased kerbside recycling and recycling centres and points. This indicates that the efforts made by local authorities, is now reaping tangible rewards.”

During 2008, the Scottish Government replaced its ring-fenced funding for local authority recycling initiatives by introducing the £154 million Zero Waste Fund, which sees councils awarded funding as part of their main local government settlement and not issued it specifically for recycling as they had under the Strategic Waste Fund.

Waste Aware

Also today, Government-funded Waste Aware Scotland published its ‘Recycling advisor support programme report 2008/09' claimed that there was a “strong link” between recycling advisor interventions and increased set out rates for kerbside recycling in the majority of cases.

Waste Aware Scotland also claimed that there were reductions in excess waste being set out in areas where recycling advisors intervened and said that “real progress” is being made towards improving recycling across all housing types in both rural and urban areas.

Dr Nicki Souter, campaign manager at Waste Aware Scotland Campaign Manager, said: “We are delighted to be able to support local authorities in optimising kerbside recycling services through our recycling advisor training and support programme. It's great to see the positive impact that recycling advisors are having on helping the public to increase the amount of waste that they recycle at home.”