IT will be reassuring to those who recycle their household rubbish regularly to know that most of their efforts are not in vain. But the fact that thousands of tonnes of recycled waste from the Lothians still ends up in landfill sites must remain a matter of some concern.
According to the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency almost 30,000 tonnes of such waste collected each year in Scotland – 5500 from the Lothians – ends up being buried rather than returned in a useable form.
But while a considerable volume of
waste is rejected, Edinburgh can be justifiably proud of the fact that a mere 0.5 per cent of the 45,000 tonnes it collects annually is deemed unfit to be recycled. Much of this is due to householders throwing out contaminated items, which can lead to whole lorry loads being dumped.
Although the present economic climate has seen a fall in the price for materials, there is still a ready market for high-quality waste – this newspaper you are reading today could well be made out of recycled paper collected in Edinburgh.
Thanks to the vision of the city council in providing a variety of bins for various materials, the Capital's recycling rate has soared in the past decade. More than 30 per cent of waste was recycled last year, although even such sterling efforts may not be enough to meet the national target of 40 per cent by the end of 2010.
But one of the biggest culprits in generating waste for landfill sites remain supermarkets, who still distribute something in the region of 13 billion plastic carrier bags a year.
Research has shown that most are discarded within 20 minutes but each takes up to 1000 years to rot.
Today the Government has announced a campaign to encourage people to re-use bags in Scottish supermarkets, many of whom have been trying to do this themselves. The more cynical would say that the stores' motive is driven by the fact that provision for them to be taxed for failing to do so has been woven into the proposed Climate Change Bill.
And while supermarkets may wish to pat themselves on the back for attempting to persuade customers not to use free bags, a recent report by the Local Government Association tends to suggest that some may be guilty of hypocrisy.
While the total weight of food packaging has been reduced over the past two years, almost 40 per cent of materials they use cannot be recycled. That remains as pressing an issue as the volume of waste created by free carrier bags.
