Edinburgh Council rubbished over recycling as 11,000 complain about collections

MORE than 11,000 complaints have been made about recycling collections in the Capital in the last two years alone, new figures show. However, only around 200 were related to the bin dispute.

The city council was today accused of holding up attempts to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill after complaints about both on-street bins and household collections.

Around half the complaints were over the council's failure to collect garden waste, although other gripes included workers spilling rubbish in the street.

There were more than 3,400 recycling complaints about red and blue multi-material boxes not being picked up.

Despite the problems associated with the city's bin dispute, there were just 212 complaints about recycling not being collected as a result of the industrial action.

Green councillor Alison Johnstone said there were also concerns that full on-street recycling bins were hampering efforts to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill.

She said: "I think the council administration are very good at talking the talk, but this is going to fall flat on its face due to the ongoing failure to put the most basic facilities in place.

"A lot of people are really keen to recycle and we need to make it as easy as possible for them to do so in order to meet the targets."

The council has to meet an ambitious 38.6 per cent target next year for the amount of waste which is recycled. The figure currently stands at 31.6 per cent.

Earlier this year the local authority revealed plans to collect food waste alongside other household rubbish.

If approved, the scheme would see city residents supplied with plastic boxes which would be collected on a weekly basis, adding to those already handed out for newspapers, packaging and garden waste.

A survey by Keep Scotland Beautiful found that two-thirds of city residents would be in favour of such a scheme.

Councillor Gordon Mackenzie, the convener of the city's environment committee, said: "There have been over ten million uplifts from households over the past two years plus many thousands more from communal sites.

"The number of complaints represents about one per cent of that total.

"We also know from the Annual Neighbourhood Survey that 80 per cent of residents are happy with their recycling service."

He added: "Nonetheless, we are striving to do better in order to meet our ambitious recycling targets and the figures show there is no room for complacency."