Recycling targets for local authorities

Let's encourage councils to make positive choices when looking at recycling issue. Our local recycling centre has a 'shop' on site, run by a separate social enterprise. Residents can choose to put items to be recycled in the normal ways OR for items that are still serviceable, donate them to the shop for other residents to purchase cheaply or for community groups to use. Very much a win:win situation. Every town should have one.

Whilst targets are useful a legal target comes with all manner of problems. The main one is that there is no universal recycling system throughout Scotland and as such all authority areas would need to have targets set for their area individually. This makes comparison between areas problematic and makes a country wide strategy difficult to implement. Ideally the entire country should be aiming to recycle 100% but with the best will in the world that is not achievable. If targets are set too low councils may not put the effort into recycling. If the targets are too high, use of fines on residents & similar as well as mis-statement of collection rates are likely to increase. Recycling in Scotland needs a massive overhaul and if done properly, there'd be no need for legal targets.

(1) Councils should be required to increase the quality and rate of household recycling. (2) Councils should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill. (3) The Scottish Government should consult with the public, community groups and workers on changes to waste systems. (4) In Scotland, we shouldn’t be consuming materials that harm people or the environment anywhere in the world .

Recycling bins are constantly misused for lack of clarity in my neighbourhood. Pavements are littered with single-use items such as coffee cups, the council recycling centres appear to be dumping sites where perfectly usable items that could have been repurposed, are discarded instead. There should also be targets for reducing and reusing, alongside recycling, and businesses need to take responsibility for their waste.

In Scotland, we shouldn’t be consuming materials that harm people or the environment anywhere in the world. Councils should therefore be required to increase the quality and rate of household recycling. They should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill. The Scottish Government should consult with the public, community groups and workers on changes to waste systems

Councils should be required to increase the quality and rate of household recycling Councils should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill The Scottish Government should consult with the public, community groups and workers on changes to waste systems In Scotland, we shouldn’t be consuming materials that harm people or the environment anywhere in the world

The three R mantra is Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, but people often focus solely on the last R. There needs to be more focus on reducing waste in the first place and encourage re-use (and increase funding for local re-use initiatives like repair cafes, community groups sharing toys/tools/etc and similar). Having to hit a target for recycling could end up reducing reuse in favour of recycling, which should be avoided.

I agree with this as without targets how can progress be reliably measured?

Councils should be required to increase the quality and rate of household recycling Councils should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill The Scottish Government should consult with the public, community groups and workers on changes to waste systems In Scotland, we shouldn’t be consuming materials that harm people or the environment anywhere in the world

There is very little in this bill that actually deals with the 'circular economy'. We need to move further up the waste hierarchy towards reuse, repair and sharing, with local authority reuse targets not recycling targets. There is a target to reach 100 share and repair projects in Scotland, which hasn't been supported in and more needs to be done to invest in community-led circular and climate action. Spain has a policy that 50% of municipal waste needs to be given to social enterprises to be reused. Targets such as these need to be implemented to foster a circular economy that can build a local green economy

Councils should be required to increase the quality and rate of household recycling. Councils should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill. The Scottish Government should consult with the public, community groups and workers on changes to waste systems. In Scotland, we shouldn’t be consuming materials that harm people or the environment anywhere in the world.

Recycling is not a silver bullet and companies should be mandated to produce much less single-use and plastic products. There should be much more emphasis on reducing and reusing. However, councils should be required to increase the quality and rate of household recycling. They should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill.

Councils should be required to increase the quality and rate of household recycling Councils should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill The Scottish Government should consult with the public, community groups and workers on changes to waste systems In Scotland, we shouldn’t be consuming materials that harm people or the environment anywhere in the world

Councils should be required to increase the quality and rate of household recycling Councils should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill The Scottish Government should consult with the public, community groups and workers on changes to waste systems In Scotland, we shouldn’t be consuming materials that harm people or the environment anywhere in the world

Councils should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill

As I said previously we need to know what we can recycle as different areas/council recyle different things. We need more co-operation so that all the councils can recycle the same things

Councils need to increase the quality and rate of household recycling and they should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill The Government needs to consult the public and workers on changes to waste systems.

Councils should be required to increase the quality and rate of household recycling Councils should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill The Scottish Government should consult with the public, community groups and workers on changes to waste systems In Scotland, we shouldn’t be consuming materials that harm people or the environment anywhere in the world

there seems to be vast differences in the recycling available in different regions of the country. Some definitely need to try harder. Moray seems to be quite good but they only have plastic recycling for 1,2 and 5. What about other plastics?

Councils should be required to increase the quality and rate of household recycling Councils should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill The Scottish Government should consult with the public, community groups and workers on changes to waste systems In Scotland, we shouldn’t be consuming materials that harm people or the environment anywhere in the world

Councils need a lot more support to enable an increase in the quality and rate of household recycling. Rather than taking tax revenues to support wealthy investors and Tory party donors (eg transferring the cost of watercourse pollution in housebuilding), tax revenue should be used to support a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill The Scottish Government should consult with the public, community groups and workers on changes to waste systems. We need to make the transition from materials that harm people and the environnent - from wherever these materials come from

Recycling targest might help a bit, but it is also hugely important that the availability of plastic packaging and other problematic materials is reduced to an absolute minimum.

I think councils have enough red tape to deal with and with the budgets being slashed who will police this law? Recycling should ɓe about education with many more small local recycling sites supplied by the Scottish government.

I feel councils should be spending effort and resource on helping households maximise their recycling in whichever ways work for their locality rather than trying to reach arbitrary targets.

Targets are meaningless if the resources are not there to ensure they can be implemented.

I think arbitrary levels are challenging when the councils have so much pressure on them however as a trustee of a large circular economy charity in Alloa I do believe there are so many other ways that councils can adopt better circular economy practices. Finally after 5 years of asking we have a container opening at the recycling centre - this should have been a non-brainer but so muchcrrsistance as it was changing practices. The other fight I cannot seem to win is around letting people receive goods via our shop rather than via framework when they are homeless. It is such and easy thing to change - we get a purchase order and invoice and it would mean chea nasty sofas from China would be replaced by choice dignity reduced emissions and better quality. Councils should be made to do this or at least provide the option for people to use equivalent money on circular economy goods. They could at least get rugs for flooring and other homeware items. It is a community wealth building pillar so should be possible to adopt. Changing practices is the biggest challenge for our sector in councils.

Local Authorities will fudge their actual achievements and what happens to the local authority if they don't meet their target? Don't set targets for LAs, make sure that they are a constituted part of their scope, reward LA's for achieving the highest quartile in recycling - change behaviour by reward

Councils should be required to increase the quality and rate of household recycling Councils should be supported to increase household recycling through the creation of a national recycling target in the Circular Economy Bill The Scottish Government should consult with the public, community groups and workers on changes to waste systems In Scotland, we shouldn’t be consuming materials that harm people or the environment anywhere in the world

The point shouldn't be reaching a recycling target but reducing the waste regardless. Recycled and recyclable products still consumes energy for their production and recycling cycle, it's not a solution.

Manufacturers need to move away from single use non recyclable packaging. This should not be forced on the 'end user' so to speak but at point of entry to the market.

The focus of this bill should be on Reduce, Reuse and Repair targets. These are essential for a circular economy. This bill should really reflect this adapted view and not keeping focusing on recycling as the main element in a circular economy. Recycling is the least effective of the above Rs.

I am worried that recycling targets may not result in us addressing the real problems with waste. The emphasis needs to be on a major reduction in waste, through re-use and repair. There are many problems with recycling, partly due to it being globalised. Waste that is allegedly destined for recycling, is being transported around the world, incurring major carbon footprints, and ending up as waste that is never recycled in other countries. I am concerned that recycling targets could result in more of this, because we need more facilities for recycling a greater range of products in Scotland. We need to think about local solutions to local waste and the strategic provision of recycling facilities. We need to take proper account of the carbon footprint of our recycling streams.

Recycling targets should be high. However, a good recycling system lulls the public into a false sense of security. It is far better not to need recycling by reducing the amount of plastic produced in the first place.it is vital to recycle metal as this can be recycled forever. A reuse target for everyone would have a bigger impact eg on glass bottles and jars.

Targets are fine in principle, but there is a danger that there is too much emphasis on "recycling" when it is really "downcycling" (e.g. in the case of problematic plastics). There is a real danger that the public will think that they can continue a high single-use lifestyle because their single-use items are getting "recycled", so everything is fine. But downcycling is not a circular practice, virgin resources still end up being consumed to replace the downcycled products. So while targets are fine to encourage more efficient collection of unavoidable waste, this must be accompanied by robust measures to reduce single-use items and a clear information campaign communicating that recycling is a last resort and not an excuse to carry on with business as usual. The main improvement to bin services in Fife would be much clearer communication of what can go in which bin, especially around so-called "compostables", which in Fife have to go to landfill, but most people think they can put them in their food waste bins.

Fines to incentivise households to recycle should only be used once everyone in Scotland has access to high quality, consistent recycling and waste services and once producers have been forced to make their products more sustainable The Bill must require the Scottish Government to consult with the public on changes to household waste systems, as these decisions will affect us

Recycling systems need to before more streamlined and easy to use. Councils need to be held to higher standards and supported to achieve those standards.