RECYCLE YOUR MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Over 600 tonnes of plastic bottles have been recycled in the past year in Edinburgh but that’s still only 26% of all plastic bottles thrown away by households.
Now The City of Edinburgh Council is encouraging households to do their part during Recycle Week 2012 to help reach the capital’s targets of recycling 50% of domestic waste by 2015.
A series of recycling roadshows are being held across the city tomorrow and Friday when Council recycling officers will be advising people about different services available and how recycling can help keep the city clean and green.
On average each household in Edinburgh sends 0.524 tonnes of waste to landfill a year at a cost of £100 per tonne. If every household reduced this amount by 10% it would save the Council £1,231,500 a year.
An added focus of this year’s campaign is the recycling of plastic bottles. Thanks to new technology bottles of all shapes and sizes can be recycled but despite this only 26% of them currently make the recycling bin which is equal to 623 tonnes.
Councillor Jim Orr, Vice Convener for Environment, said: “This Council is committed to meeting our 2015 recycling targets and part of this is getting more people to consider their environment when disposing of waste.
“Every tonne of waste that goes to landfill costs the Council £100 while recycling costs a small fraction of that. It is our aim to make Edinburgh a more sustainable city but to do this we need everyone to play their part.”
Recycling not only protects the world’s natural resources, but provides energy savings too. If everyone in Scotland recycled just one extra plastic bottle during Recycle Week, this would save enough energy to power over 6,000 plasma screen televisions for a year. It also benefits the environment by significantly reducing air and water pollutants. There is also a heavy financial cost for the Council due to landfill costs.
Currently 147,000 tonnes is sent to landfill every year and if current recycling rates remained static then the cost of this would increase from £10.37m to £16.24m by 2014. If more residents reduce, reuse and recycle this figure could reduce to £11.85m.
The Council has a range of recycling services for everyone in Edinburgh – from kerbside collection, to paper and packaging recycling points in tenement areas – making it easier for residents to recycle more.
Roadshow dates are as follows:
Thursday 21 June: South Neighbourhood Office, 40 Captains Road, Edinburgh, EH17 8HN between 10am and 3pm
Friday 22 June: East Neighbourhood Office, 86 Niddrie Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH16 4DT, between 10am and 2pm
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
