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Indicators of Sustainable Development for Scotland

Indicator 5. Waste: recycling

Percentage of total household waste recycled

Percentage of total household waste recycled in rural and urban councils

Source: Accounts Commission for Scotland

The relevance of the indicator

Increasing recycling of materials is part of our strategy to improve resource efficiency - doing more with less.

Choice of Indicator

No common indicator is used internationally to measure recycling of household waste. In some countries the measure relates to municipal waste, in others construction waste is included. In Scotland, this indicator is based on estimates of household waste provided by local authorities.

Detailed definition and source details

The indicator is defined as the percentage of household waste, collected by or on behalf of councils, that is recycled. It excludes both commercial and industrial waste that is recycled and household waste that is composted by households. Councils obtain waste material for recycling in three ways - through collections at recycling centres (eg bottle banks, paper banks), by separate house-to-house collection of recyclable materials or by separating waste after collection. The Accounts Commission sets out how local authorities should measure indicators in formal instructions each year ¹⁴.

Trends

In 2001-2002, 8.0% of household waste was recycled, which is a slight improvement (increase of 1 percentage point) on the previous year. A further 2.4%, the same amount as the previous year, was used for the recovery of heat, power or other energy sources .

Further disaggregation

Data are available for individual council areas from 1998-99. Rural councils generally recycle more household waste than urban councils and, in 2001-2002, 10.8% of household waste in rural councils was recycled compared with 6.7% of household waste in urban councils. Ten councils reported recycling more than 10% of household waste. 22 councils (eight more than the previous year) collected household green waste, which was composted centrally. (See the Annex for allocation of council areas to urban and rural)

Target

To recycle and compost 25% of municipal waste by 2006.

Action

We are taking powers for Ministers to set targets in the Local Government in Scotland Bill and to require local authorities to prepare Integrated Waste Management Plans to meet the targets. We have established a Strategic Waste Fund to assist local authorities in implementing Area Waste Plans under the National Waste Strategy and have allocated 230m over the next 3 years (2003-04 to 2005-06).

A major publicity campaign to encourage the public to reduce, reuse and recycle was launched as the second phase of our Do a little, change a lot environmental awareness campaign ¹⁵ in September 2002. The Scottish Waste Awareness Group, for which we provide support, is also developing the Waste Aware Scotland campaign for use by local authorities as improved recycling facilities are introduced. In addition, we distributed 6m to local authorities in December 2002 for recycling and composting initiatives.

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