Scotland’s recycling rate for materials from all sources in 2017 was 58.9%, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) statistics have shown, a slight decrease against 2016.
Organic waste recycled by composting or anaerobic digestion increased by 4.6% – equivalent to 158,000 tonnes – since 2016, while the quantity of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill fell to 1.09 million tonnes, which was a 0.05 million-tonne reduction.
Incineration with energy recovery increased by 14.7% to 760,000 tonnes over 2016, and landfill increased slightly to account for 32.6% of all waste managed, up by 0.1%.
Scotland produced 5.5% more waste in 2017 than the previous years so, while 142,195 more tonnes of waste was recycled, the recycling rate still fell to 58.9% from 59.1% in 2016.
Laura Tainsh, a partner in law firm Davidson Chalmers, said: “There is still confusion about what can be recycled and inconsistency but, in 2016, there was a lot of messaging about recycling by local authorities and that dropped off in 2017.
“Also in 2017, a number of councils changed collection frequencies and those things together may have led to the fall in the recycling rate.”
A Sepa spokesperson said: ”In 2017, the estimated Scottish waste from all sources recycled was 6.93 million tonnes, which is 142,195 tonnes (2.1%) more waste recycled than in 2016.
”A contributory factor to this difference is an increase in recycling of construction and demolition wastes such as soils.
”Excluding soils, there was a decrease in recycling of 92,709 tonnes (2.3%) from 2016, which included common sludges (decrease of 155,013 tonnes, 44.7%), glass wastes (decrease of 71,569 tonnes, 23.8%) and mineral wastes from waste treatment and stabilised wastes (decrease of 67,786 tonnes, 48.6%).”
A spokesperson for Scottish local authority body Cosla said: ”Scotland’s local authorities are working hard to improve recycling, in spite of shrinking resources, and actually recorded a recycling and composting rate of 45.6% in 2017, which represents an increase on 2016.”
Sepa chief executive Terry A’Hearn said: “The most successful countries in the 21st century will be resource-efficient, circular economies, where what once was waste is valued as a resource. As such, the latest figures give communities and businesses a fresh focus for the opportunity ahead.”
| Scottish waste stats | 2016 | 2017 |
|---|---|---|
|
Recycling/composting and preparing for reuse of waste from all sources |
59.1% |
58.9% |
|
Organic waste recycled by composting or anaerobic digestion |
605, 614 tonnes |
633, 629 tonnes |
|
Biodegradable municipal waste landfilled |
1.14 million tonnes |
1.09 million tonnes |
|
Waste recovered by incineration with energy recovery |
663,925 tonnes |
761,581 tonnes |
|
Percentage of all waste sent to landfill |
32.5% |
32.6% |
This story was updated on 27 March to include comment from Sepa and Cosla.
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