Since November 2004 the Highland Council has invested heavily in recycling infrastructure based on a five point plan developed in line with the Area Waste Plan.
The Council has to date :-
- Upgraded a number of existing civic amenity sites to Recycling Centres and expanded the range of materials segregated from the waste stream. Materials collected at many of the sites include garden waste, wood, scrap metal, furniture, paper, card, cans, rubble, textiles, glass, batteries, tyres and oil.
- Built a new Recycling Centre in each of the following locations; Dingwall, Nairn, Thurso, Wick and Fort William.
- Expanded the network of Recycling Points to around 200. This aims to ensure an average density of one Recycling Point for every 500 households, in line with national best practice guidance. This should also see a Recycling Point for every community of 100 or more households. Each point has a range of facilities, in due course the aim is to include paper, glass, cans and textile banks.
- Introduced kerbside collection of recyclable materials to nearly 70,000 properties in Highland. The Council will deliver this service to most of Inverness, Badenoch & Strathspey, Easter Ross, Thurso, Wick and Fort William. This service consists of a fortnightly collection of paper and cans, and a fortnightly collection of green garden waste. However, Fort William at this time does not receive a can collection. In addition, GREAN (Golspie Recycling and Environmental Action Network) deliver a collection , on behalf of the Council, to areas in East and Central Sutherland.
- Run waste awareness and promotion campaigns to support the new schemes, focusing on maximising participation on recycling schemes and minimising waste arisings.
The Council's Waste Management Unit continuely strives to increase the facilities for people in the Highland to recycle their waste and increase the recycling rate; as waste generation is increasing at about 2% per annum this is proving a major challenge just to keep the recycling rate at the present position.
Future Developments
The Council's TEC Services Committee agreed in April to introduce palsric bottle recycling facilities at the following Recycling Centres throughout Highland; Wick, Thurso, Tain, Alness, Dingwall, Inverness, Grainish, Nairn and Fort William.
GREAN in Golspie will also continue to deliver, on behalf of the Council, a kerbside recycling collection to around 3,000 households in East and Central Sutherland. This collection includes plastic drinks bottles and the operation will be evaluated to determine how it works in practice.
Councillors also agreed to introduce a kerbside collection scheme to an additional 30,000 households. This will see almost 100% of houses in Highland having materials collected for recycling
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