Recycling saves councils £20m

Published on Thursday 9 February 2012 00:00

Councils save more than £20 million a year because of household recycling, new figures reveal.

Zero Waste Scotland, the Scottish Government-funded organisation set up to promote recycling, has estimated the saving based on the amount households already recycle through kerbside collections.

This is calculated by comparing recycled material collection and disposal costs with the costs of sending the equivalent weight to landfill.

Meanwhile, environment secretary Richard Lochhead has launched the government’s latest recycling campaign.

He said: “It’s far better that we invest money in frontline services than bury it in landfill, so it’s great news that Scotland’s recycling effort saves our local authorities £20m each year.

“Our recycling campaign aims to encourage people to recycle more, more often. Latest figures show Scotland’s households already recycle nearly 44 per cent of waste but there’s a lot more we could all be doing.”

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SimonHurrll

Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 11:17 AM

This article is a nonsense. Recycling - or whetever term you use - separates those items which have value for those that have a use for them and those that have a use for them make money from this. It is the residuals in the waste that are the issue. The idea of providing a cost effective and environmentally suitable residual waste tretament system is the goal. So far those mega-companies that go for incineration (BURNING) of waste cost us a fortune in the building of these, a fortune in subsidies to build them through this fraudulent placement of PFI (Private Finance Initiative) style of project which entails subsidies to the service provider with... 1] high costs for treatment 2] high costs for the sale of any anergy they produced - Green Tarrifs 3] a Put or Pay backing that means they are guaranteed a supply of residual waste even if it isn't there, for which they are still paid 4] the transposition of this "Put or Pay" scenario to the result that if there is a lower quantity of waste they are paid for the theoretical electricity they would have produced at the throughput they had been advised was available 5] a subsidised input supply of electricity which means that if a facility like that proposed for Glasgow was supposed to be able to produce 45 MW continuously but used 28 MW to make it run the needs for the electricity to make it run (that is the 28MW) would be charged at £60--00 per MWh whereas they would reap the rewards (for the 45 MWh) of electricity they said they could make would be paid for to them at £150--00 per MWh. 6] under the PFI scheme they are allowed interest rates of 2% below current market rates of interest. This means that for a project which would cost £400 Million for 650,000 tonnes per year the Council Tax Payer is caught in the hoop with a white elephant of debt which within 6 years will also cost a further £200 million to upgrade to meet new standards for emissions, and by 2024 require an additional £400 Million extra to be spent on iot to accommodate the total elimination of all emmitive particles and to the atmosphere. There is an alternative system which makes use of the residual waste and converts it to real transport fuels namely Bioethanol or Biobutanol and it would cost around £125 Million for the same quantity of waste and it could survive with a Treatment Fee that will start at significantly lower than Land Fill Costs at about £30--00 per tonne and within 7 years that cost would be eliminated altogether and be at a ....ZERO COST TO the COUNCIL TAX Payer. The issue of Recycling is one part of the whole waste agenda. It does help but whilst the Scottish Government is hell-bent on this issue they are missingthe fact that the total Waste Treatment bill for Scotland could be slashed to less than a third..

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unimpressedone

Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 08:16 AM

The left hand of government beating the right hand with a big stick. Recycling for most materials is a pointless exercise maintained using articial incentives and fines.

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