Speaking at a CIWM Scottish Waste and Resources conference in Glasgow yesterday, Mr Lochhead revealed that household waste recycling rates in Scotland reached 31.7% in 2007/08 – up 3.3% from the year before – which he said reflected well on councils and residents.
These latest moves reflect well on both local authorities and individuals but there is no room for complacency and we need to push on even further.
Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs
However, the environment secretary warned that there was “no room for complacency” and that the country needed to push even further to ensure that Scotland improved its performance and met its goal of zero waste.
This follows doubts being raised earlier this year that Scotland's small improvement in recycling might affect its ability to meet future recycling targets(see letsrecycle.com story).
He said: “These latest moves reflect well on both local authorities and individuals but there is no room for complacency and we need to push on even further.
“We all have a role to play in ensuring Scotland becomes a cleaner, greener place and dealing with our waste responsibility is a huge part of that,” he added.
According to annual figures, which were officially published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) Scotland achieved a municipal recycling rate of nearly 32% for the rolling year of April 2007 to March 2008.
The best performing councils in recycling and composting were noted as Mr Lochhead's own constituency of Moray, which had a 44% composting and recycling rate, with South Ayrshire (43.1%) and Clackmannanshire (42.2%) also performing well. The lowest performers being Glasgow city council (18.1%) and the Shetland Islands (19.2%).
Echoing Mr Lochhead's comments, Kenny Boag, head of the waste unit at SEPA, said: “To reach the next target of 40% by 2010 will place responsibilities on everyone in Scotland to take part, and change some of our habits and the choices we make that so often lead to unnecessary waste production. It is important that we all accept that this is not just an issue for the local authorities and we all have a role to play.
Reverse Vending
The advances in the country's recycling rate coincide with Tesco announcing that it intends to roll-out ‘reverse vending' machines to nine of its Scottish stores, in a preemptive move to comply with a legislative proposal laid out by Mr Lochhead in July.
In a bid to enhance the bottle capture rate, the Cabinet Secretary had discussed the use of technology which rewarded recyclers with club card points or other rewards as potentially doubling the amount of bottles collected in Scotland. (see letsrecycle.com story)
Tesco has now decided to rollout the automated machines to some of its Scottish stores from January, and will reward people who recycle cans or bottles. The supermarket giant has said that there is a potential to do further rollouts dependent on the popularity and success of the scheme.
David North, community and government director of Tesco, said: “As a responsible retailer, we are committed to helping our customers adopt green habits. They've asked us to make recycling easier so this is what our new automated machines are designed to do.”
The machines use spectrometry and photography to identify the material placed in the machine and then assigns it to the correct bin, and the introduction of the scheme has been very much welcomed by the Scottish Government.
Mr Lochhead, who had previously championed the use of such technology, said: “Earlier in the year we consulted on a number of innovative ideas aimed at improving Scotland's performance on waste. I am delighted to see that Tesco shares my vision of a ‘Zero Waste Scotland' and is seeking to introduce reverse vending to Scotland.”
“Reverse vending has terrific potential to improve our rates of recycling and evidence from Scandinavia and Canada shows that it has reaped real rewards,” he added.
From a more local area specific focus, the area waste plan annual reports for 07/08 and action plans for 08/09 were also been launched, and SEPA will shortly publish a series of Strategic Waste Management Reviews (SWMRs), one for each of the 11 Waste Strategy Areas of Scotland.
The SWMRs consider all waste data and management practices in 2006, providing comprehensive data on municipal, commercial and industrial wastes.
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