Highland Council is knocking on the door of being in the top 10 of Scottish recycling councils.
Its recycling rate has reached 45% pushing it up to number 11 in the rankings of the 32 Scottish local authorities according to new figures released by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency for 2013.
Councillor Graham MacKenzie, chairman of the council’s community services committee, said: “These latest figures are great news and testament to the commitment of Highland residents to recycling. Please keep up the good work as the Scottish Government’s Zero Waste Plan sets a target of 70% of all waste to be recycled by 2025.”
He added: “Highland Council is looking to increase the range materials collected in the blue recycling bins. This will hopefully happen sometime next year which will be welcomed by householders and help push our recycling rate higher still.”
Recycling of paper, cardboard, tins, cans and plastic bottles have all seen a steady rise since the Alternate Weekly Collections began to be rolled out in 2010 with approximately 16,000 tonnes being recycled last year.
Glass recycling is also at an all-time high in Highland with around 65% of all glass bottles and jars being recycled by residents which is really good news. The glass bottles & jars are transported to the central belt where they are reprocessed into glass fibre insulation or new glass bottles and jars.