This Recycle Week, let’s come together to recycle as much as we can in Highland!

The Highland Council is taking the opportunity during Recycle Week 2019 to encourage Highland households and businesses to do their bit and remember to recycle as much as they can.

Recycle Week (23- 29 September 2019) is the annual awareness week coordinated by Zero Waste Scotland, aiming to get everyone recycling more by raising awareness of the benefits and promoting easy ways to do more.

Councillor Allan Henderson, Chair of Community Services for The Highland Council said “This is a good opportunity to thank Highlanders for their recycling efforts.  Last year, around 43% of the 143,000 tonnes of waste generated by households and businesses in the region was recycled.”

He continued, “2019 has been a year of global environmental activism with a growing awareness of the damaging effects of plastic litter and pollution. With the approaching ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste in Scotland in 2021, it is more important than ever that we all try to waste less, ensure we reuse items and then recycle as much as possible.  Another good reason to remember to recycle more and waste less is that it currently costs the Council around £150 per tonne to transport and dispose of waste to landfill, whereas it costs about half this amount to handle the material that is sent for recycling.  Collectively we all need to come together to reduce our environmental impact and in turn build a vibrant circular economy in Highland.”

Highlanders are being reminded this week to use their blue bin for cardboard, paper, tins, cans, cartons, aerosols and plastic bottles, tubs, pots and trays. Items must be clean, dry and loose and remember it’s not just items from the kitchen; toilet roll tubes and shampoo bottles from the bathroom can also easily be recycled! Common contaminants such as plastic bags, glass and food waste cannot be recycled in the blue bins but do sometimes make their way in. Blue bins maybe rejected if they contain the wrong items as they contaminate the rest of the load and cause problems when the materials are being sorted.

There are also over 200 Recycling Points located across the region where glass bottles and jars can be recycled along with clothing and shoes.   Other household items such as broken washing machines or kitchen appliances, timber and batteries can be taken to the Council’s network of Recycling Centres.

This year, planning permission was granted for the Council to construct a new centralised Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) on part of the former Longman landfill site in Inverness. This new facility will receive Highland refuse, recover recyclables and prepare it for use as Refuse Derived Fuel.  The Refuse Derived Fuel would be exported for use elsewhere in Scotland, the UK or Europe in thermal treatment facilities (Energy From Waste plants), which use the fuel to produce electricity and heat.  

For more information on recycling or for top tips on reducing your waste, please visit www.highland.gov.uk/recycle.