Photo by andy_carter
As I mentioned earlier in the week, Edinburgh's recycling rate has jumped thanks to the industrial action taken by the city's binmen. Residents are finding their normal landfill bin full, so they're being forced into recycling as the bin collections become unreliable.
But it seems that you don't need a strike to see your recycling statistics move in the positive direction - the Scottish Environment Protection Agency says that the recycling rate for January - March this year rose from 30.1% to 33.2%
Perhaps more remarkable to my mind is that total waste has actually decreased by 120,000 tonnes to 3.29 million tonnes.
We're throwing less stuff out, and what we do throw we're recycling more of.
This ties in with the leaflet my girlfriend received from her local council this week. Previously, the only recycling they would take was paper and garden rubbish. Anything else had to go to the local dump to be recycled there. Now, she can happily fill her recycling bin with all manner of stuff including cardboard, plastic and metal cans. Food waste can go into the garden rubbish bin for composting. it should see her levels of recycling rise substantially.
Still, we should hold the celebrations. The Scottish Government wanted 40% recycling by next year. We're a long way short.
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