Recycle your Christmas tree

Edinburgh residents can present trees for collection and recycling by the City of Edinburgh Council, and should follow guidance on where and when to do this.

Those who use communal rubbish and recycling facilities can put their tree on next to on-street shared bins on designated dates depending on their street. These can be found on the Council website.

Some households in flatted and tenement properties may be on an existing garden waste collection route. Members of the public can check the Council website to see if their street is on a garden waste collection route and can present their Christmas tree at the kerbside by 6am on the next collection day.

Anyone else with a brown bin can either cut the tree up and place it in their garden waste bin or place it on the pavement by 6am on collection day (collection days can be checked online).

Christmas trees can also be recycled at any of the Community Recycling Centres at Sighthill, Seafield and Craigmillar between 8am and 7.30pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 6pm Saturday and Sunday.

Transport and Environment Convener, Councillor Lesley Hinds, said: “Thanks to the hard work of our staff over the festive period we have strived to continue our waste and recycling collections as usual. We are making every effort to collect real Christmas trees as efficiently as possible but we also rely on the public to help us do this by presenting their trees on the correct dates.”

To enable trees to be recycled, residents are reminded:

To remove all decorations from the Christmas tree
To remove stands from trees
To cut the tree in half if it is 6ft tall or more
Not to place trees in plastic bags, which means they cannot be recycled

Full festive waste arrangements are available on the Council website.

City council has waste wrapped up this Christmas

The city council is encouraging Edinburgh residents to recycle as much of their Christmas waste as possible this festive season. Continue reading City council has waste wrapped up this Christmas

Don’t let a good thing to to waste

Do your bit during Recycle Week

The City of Edinburgh Council is encouraging residents to get involved in Recycle Week, which started yesterday. The week, which is co-ordinated by Zero Waste Scotland, aims to get everyone in Scotland recycling more by raising awareness of its benefits and promoting easy ways to do more. Continue reading Don’t let a good thing to to waste

Talking rubbish: council crackdown on trade waste abuse

The city council has set up a Waste Compliance Team to tackle the illegal disposal of trade waste by businesses, particularly around communal bins. The six person squad – a team leader and five wardens – started their inspections last week. Continue reading Talking rubbish: council crackdown on trade waste abuse

Search is on for record-breaking recyclers

Scots aim for recycling world record as part of a national week of action

Zero Waste Scotland is calling on competitive Scots to take part in an attempt to set an official Guinness World Record for recycling, as part of a national week to encourage people to recycle more things, more often.

The record attempt – which will be for the fastest sort of 200 mixed items into recycling containers – is one of a whole host of action and events taking place across Scotland during Recycle Week, from 12 – 18 September.

Recycle Week encourages people to get savvy with their waste and find out how they can pick up and perfect their recycling habits.

Scotland’s household recycling rate is almost 43%, which is a great achievement, but we need to do more to reach the national target of recycling 70% by 2025. By recycling properly, Scots are saving money, helping create jobs, conserving energy and protecting Scotland’s natural environment.

The record attempt, open to the public, will take place at St Enoch Centre in Glasgow on Saturday, 10 September. Further events throughout the country can be found at recycleforscotland.com

Iain Gulland, Chief Executive, Zero Waste Scotland, said: “After medals and records galore at Rio’s Olympics, we decided that this Recycle Week we wanted to give Scots the opportunity to be recycling record breakers. By being the best recyclers we can, we help to preserve Scotland’s environment, tackle climate change and help our economy. Recycle Week is a chance for everyone to brush up on recycling and find out how else they can do their bit.”

Recycle Week 2016 – Top Tips

• Empty shampoo bottles, aerosol cans, toothpaste boxes and toilet rolls can all be recycled, so make sure to include a small recycling bin or bag in your bathroom.
• If you are not sure what can be recycled in your area use the postcode locator on the recycle for Scotland website to find out what you can recycle www.recycleforscotland.org.uk
• Have a clear out and make sure your unloved, working items go to good use (your local recycling centre can help or call the national Re-use line on 0800 0665 820 to have large re-usable items collected for free)
• All your plastic bottles can be recycled, from ketchup to pop bottles, bleach bottles and mouth wash – give them a quick rinse and squash for more space in your recycling bin.

Fast facts

Recycling all of Scotland’s food waste would produce enough energy to power a city the size of Inverness
Recycling is worth the effort and has a value:
- If we all recycled just one drinks can every week Scottish councils would save £3 million a year;
- Putting all of our used teabags in a food waste caddy will save almost £550,000 in landfill tax;
- If we all recycled just one clear glass bottle every week, we’d save almost £3 million a year;
- If we all recycled one mobile phone this year we would save 130 kg of gold with a value of over £4 million.
We currently send nearly 3 million tonnes of waste to landfill every year. This costs us £150 million in landfill tax

Scots can follow Recycle Week activity and share messages throughout the week on the Recycle for Scotland Facebook page or using the #RecycleWeekScot on Twitter.

If businesses, local authorities or community groups want to get involved or host an event, information and support materials are available at http://www.recycleforscotland.com/recycle-week-2016

Pick up the recycling habit!

With Scotland set to celebrate Recycle Week later this year Cabinet Secretary for the Environment Roseanna Cunningham is asking Edinburgh residents to get involved. Continue reading Pick up the recycling habit!

Government launches September Recycling Week

Pick up the recycling habit this September

Cabinet Secretary for Environment Roseanna Cunningham has announced a week long effort to get Scotland recycling – and community groups are being encouraged to get involved.

Recycle Week will run from 12 to 18 September, co-ordinated by Zero Waste Scotland, it will aim to get everyone recycling more by raising awareness of the benefits and promoting easy ways to do more.

In the run up to the week local authorities, businesses, community groups, schools and colleges are being encouraged to get involved and take action to help boost recycling.

Launching the week this morning on World Environment Day (5 June), Ms Cunningham said: “We are lucky to be blessed with a stunning environment that is one of our most precious assets. It is crucial that we protect our resources and that’s key to our ambitions for a more circular economy in Scotland, where we keep products and materials in valuable use for longer.

“We’ve made great progress increasing recycling in recent years. For example in 2010 only 12% of households had food waste collections, while new figures show that has increased to 75%. It has never been easier to recycle your waste, but we still have further to go.

“People and communities the length and breadth of Scotland have a role to play and this September we’ll be encouraging more folk to pick up the recycling habit and do their bit for our environment.”

Iain Gulland, Chief Executive, Zero Waste Scotland, said: “Recycle Week is all about getting as many people in Scotland as possible aware of the need to recycle more and to recycle better.

“More people than ever are recycling, especially in relation to food waste, which has a huge environmental impact. But we can all be better at it, and during Recycle Week we’ll be highlighting the importance of doing our bit – providing advice on what and how to recycle best, exploding some of the myths in the process, with a series of high profile events and activities. I hope as many people as possible will get involved.”

For businesses, local authorities or community groups who want to get involved or host an event, information and support materials are available at http://www.recycleforscotland.com/recycle-week-2016

Making the news: Edinburgh Remakery opens for business

The Edinburgh Remakery, a unique new re-use and repair superstore, is opening it’s doors to the public this weekend. The project aims to reinvent second-hand shopping and repair skills in the city – and you can see ‘remakery’ for yourself tomorrow! Continue reading Making the news: Edinburgh Remakery opens for business

Recycling rates continue to climb

Have residents really learned to love recycling?

Edinburgh has seen recycling rates rise thanks to the success of a new service alongside a focused campaign to increase uptake by the City of Edinburgh Council.

A surge in recycling for households receiving the new kerbside recycling service – rolled out to more than 140,000 homes over the last eighteen months – has seen the amount of waste recycled increase by 29% in 2015/16 compared to 2014/15.

Houses involved in the new service also produced 51% more food waste recycling in 2015/16 than in 2014/15, with the tonnage of food waste collected increasing at each phase of its roll out.

The upturn has contributed to a city-wide drop of 10% in the amount of waste sent to landfill since 2014/15, while the average city-wide rate of recycling has grown by 2.9% over the last year.

Environment Convener, Councillor Lesley Hinds, said: “I am delighted with these figures, which demonstrate just how effective the new recycling service has been.

“Obviously, updates to the system have been something of a culture change for those involved, but I’m pleased to see that, now it has bedded in, residents are really taking to recycling responsibly and reducing the amount of waste we send to landfill.

“We now want to see a similar uptake across the city’s tenemental and flatted properties, which are served by communal bins, and we are working hard to increase recycling provision and to make facilities as easy to access as possible.”

Over the last six months more than 940 communal dry mixed recycling bins and 617 communal glass bins have been installed on Edinburgh’s streets, with the roll-out of more communal recycling facilities planned for other areas of the city, making it easier for tenemental residents to recycle their waste.

Additionally, an interactive map, due to be launched next month, will help citizens locate communal recycling and landfill bins near their homes.

As well as an increase in on-street recycling provision, other actions aimed at facilitating more recycling over the coming year will include the ongoing audit of recycling resources for communal properties, and the ‘grouping’ of recycling and landfill bins near tenements.

It is hoped that the drive to increase recycling will see the citywide rate rise to 44.4% by the end of this year.

Find out more about recycling on the Council website. Continue reading Recycling rates continue to climb