new facilities for waste introduced
Highlanders get chance to recycle plastic bottles
Published:
Highlanders can now recycle more of their plastic waste. Facilities for recycling certain plastic bottles are now at council recycling centres in Inverness, Wick, Thurso, Alness, Dingwall, Nairn, Aviemore and Fort William.
But it will not be possible to put plastic out for kerb-side collection in the blue boxes.
They remain solely for paper and tins, due to limitations of the collection lorries and waste reception centres.
Only plastic bottles marked with either a 1 or a 2 in a small triangle can be recycled.
Type 1 bottles are mainly used for fizzy drinks and Type 2 are used as milk cartons or for detergents.
Highland Council’s transport, environment and community services department has appealed to the public to make sure only bottles marked 1 and 2 are deposited in the banks as other plastics will contaminate the load, leading to a need to dispose of the materials, rather than recycling them.
TEC services chairman councillor John Laing welcomed the new service.
He said: “In Highland we use about 50million plastic bottles a year, but now everyone has the opportunity to improve their environment.
“Householders across the Highlands have been asking us for some time now to introduce plastic waste recycling, so I am sure this new service will be popular.
“Highland Council has greatly improved the recycling infrastructure throughout the area over the past few years.
“The introduction of kerb-side recycling to 70% of households and an increase in recycling points and centres have enabled the public to play an enormous part in improving the recycling rate from just a few percent a couple of years ago to just over 30% in the past year.
“The introduction of plastic recycling will now give residents the chance to recycle the last major element of the waste in their dustbin.”
Council waste analysis has identified that plastic bottles only make up about 2% of the weight of the waste in a wheelie bin, but they take up a disproportionate amount of space.
For more information visit www.highland.gov.uk/recycle or phone 01349 868439.
To find out more about plastic recycling you can visit www.recoup.org.uk.
