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Public Attitudes to the Environment in Scotland

CHAPTER FOUR RECYCLING AND COMPOSTING

Chapter 3 showed strong support for the idea that people in Scotland need to change their way of life so that future generations can continue to enjoy a good quality of life and environment. Among those who felt a personal responsibility to change their way of life for these reasons, recycling was the most commonly suggested area where people felt they should make changes. Chapter 4 now considers issues of waste and recycling in more detail, showing the extent to which people currently recycle and compost materials, and their potential interest in recycling more.

These public attitudes should be set alongside the context of Scotland's National Waste Plan. The Executive has set a national target of 25% recycling and composting of municipal waste by 2006 ⁴³. The National Waste Plan places waste minimisation or reduction at the top of a 'waste hierarchy' prioritising this aim above reuse or recycling of waste materials ⁴⁴. Other elements of the policy context are the Scottish Waste Awareness Group (SWAG), a Scotland wide initiative aimed at raising awareness of waste issues among the general public ⁴⁵, the UK-wide Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) ⁴⁶ and the European Landfill Directive of 2002 ⁴⁷.

4.1 ACCESS TO RECYCLING FACILITIES

Within Scotland it is possible to recycle many household materials, such as glass, paper, cans, plastic and textiles. Materials are sometimes collected from people's doorsteps for recycling, but often people have to take their materials for recycling to a central deposit point. In some areas, there may be no facilities for recycling certain materials at all.

The survey asked two important questions related to respondents' access to recycling facilities. Firstly, how far from their home were there facilities for recycling materials such as cans, paper and bottles. Doorstep collection arrangements were included in the category 'within 1 minute walk of home' and respondents could also state 'there aren't any that I know of'. The second question asked which methods people could currently use for recycling specific materials (glass bottles and jars, paper, cans and plastic). The options presented here were taking them to a recycling bank, getting them collected from home, or 'no way to do this'. By combining data from these two questions it is possible to identify the access people had to recycling facilities for different materials at the time of the survey ⁴⁸.

As Table 4.1 shows, the method of recycling varied notably by material type. While over one in five people had home-collection of paper for recycling, only one in twenty had home collection of other materials. Transporting materials to recycling banks can be inconvenient due to the weight and bulk of the materials. Thus unless facilities are located close to their homes, many people need access to a car in order to recycle. It can be seen from Table 4.1 that for both glass and paper, around four in ten people or more either had home collection for recycling, or facilities within 10 minutes walk of their home. Just over a quarter of people said there was nowhere for them to recycle paper (28%) and just under one in five said this for glass (17%). Half the respondents said that there was nowhere to recycle plastic in their area that they were aware of (49%) and a third said this for cans (34%). Section 4.2 considers the relationship between access to recycling facilities and their use.

* In subsequent tables this category is merged with the 'don't know' category.

Access to facilities varied considerably in relation to where people lived, their housing tenure and whether the household had a car available (Tables 4.2 and 4.3). There were also some variations by age and education, particularly in relation to knowledge about the location of recycling facilities (Table 4.3). There were no notable differences between men and women in either access to facilities or awareness of their location.

Urban or rural location

Those in urban areas were more likely to have door-step collection services than those in rural areas. For paper, 7% of those in remote rural areas and 12% of those in accessible rural areas had a home collection service compared with 23% of those in large urban areas and 30% of those in other urban areas. Accessible small towns appeared to be less well served in terms of door-step collection services (14%) than remote small towns (27%). Rural dwellers were notably more likely than their urban counterparts to say there were no recycling facilities for a particular material that they could use, or that the available facilities were over 20 minutes walk from their home. For paper, 46% of those in remote rural areas said there were no recycling facilities compared with 26% of those in large urban areas, while for glass, 36% of those in remote rural areas said their recycling facilities were 20 minutes walk or more from their homes compared with 11% of those in large urban areas (Table 4.2).

Age

Those in the youngest age group, 16-24, were less likely than their elder counterparts to have door-step collection services but more likely to have recycling banks within 5 minutes walk of their home (Table 4.2). Of course this may be related more to where young people live, than to their age, however it might also be expected to impact on recycling behaviour which is later considered in relation to age, and so it is worth noting. Those in the youngest and oldest age groups were less likely to know where they could recycle the various materials - this may be related to the fact that these groups were also least likely to have access to private transport (section 1.4). In the case of young people it might also relate to them having spent less time living in a particular neighbourhood and thus not yet being aware of the facilities.

Highest educational qualification

Those with higher educational qualifications were least likely to say there were no facilities for recycling materials and those with no qualifications were most likely to say this (Table 4.3). For example, 27% of those with no qualifications said there was nowhere they could recycle glass as did just 10% of those with degrees or professional qualifications. There were no notable differences in the availability of home collection recycling services in relation to respondents' educational qualifications.

Tenure type

As Table 4.3 shows, only 8% of private renters had a home-collection service for paper compared with over one in five of those who owned their home or lived in social rented housing (24% and 21% respectively).

Availability of a car

The survey found that reported access to recycling facilities varied in relation to whether people lived in a household with a car or not (Table 4.3). Those with a car were more likely than those without to say their recycling facilities were banks over 20 minutes walk from their home. A smaller proportion of people with cars said that there were no recycling facilities they could use. For example, 28% of those with no car said there were no recycling facilities they could use for recycling glass, twice the proportion of those with a car who said this (14%).

Regression analysis was undertaken to determine whether the relationships between access to facilities and urban or rural location, tenure type, highest educational qualification, age and access to a car remained significant once the inter-relationships between these variables were controlled for. It was found that for glass and cans, each of the characteristics retained a significant effect, with the exception of household car availability. For paper, each characteristic except age remained significant. For plastic, educational qualifications were not significant once the effects of other variables were taken into account ⁴⁹.

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