Cleaner recycling means less waste, less landfill and more value!
30th January 2018
The Highland Council would like to remind householders to only put clean and dry items into blue recycling bins. Cleaner recycling means less waste, less landfill and therefore more value.
The Highland Council (as is the case with most Local Authorities) requests that all items presented for recycling are empty, clean, dry and not in plastic bags. Food waste can contaminate a load and reduce the quality of recycled materials. When materials are contaminated their market value decreases and can result in higher prices to process the material or landfilling of the material.
Cllr Allan Henderson, Chair of the Council's Environment, Development and Infrastructure Committee explains: "We need recycled materials to be clean and dry in order to maximise recycling and diversion from landfill. Once material is contaminated it is difficult to be recycled."
The easiest way to help maintain good quality recycling is to rinse items; use the end of your washing up water, or rinse in as little water as possible. Leave to dry and put in your recycling bin. Please don't bag up your recycling in plastic bags. The Material Recovery Facility where your recycling goes cannot process plastic bags. Please re-use bags or take them to the recycling points in supermarkets.
You may see the operations crew checking your blue recycling bin before they empty it into the recycling vehicle. They are looking to see the quality of the recycling in your bin and will leave a sticker on your bin to help you if they see too much contamination in your bin.
Cllr Alan Henderson added: "If recycling is spoiled before it reaches us it may have to be sent to landfill which costs the Council a lot more to dispose of. Currently in Highland the recycling rate is 45%. In 2017 16,500 tonnes of recycling was collected in the blue bins across the region. Your effort is valued and could save the Council thousands of pounds in landfill costs so I would like to thank everyone for helping to achieve this and would encourage everyone to continue to improve on this figure, and help the Council to avoid the high costs of sending waste to landfill."
For a comprehensive list of what goes in your blue bin and how to recycle please visit: https://www.highland.gov.uk/recycle
For further information about recycling in the Highlands visit: www.highland.gov.uk/recycle email recycle@highland.gov.uk or call 01349 886603.
Related Businesses
Related Articles
As intimated in Highland Council's budget plan, a new senior management structure is to be implemented following approval by Council 14th March. It reconfigures the senior management team into two layers, rather than three and brings Highland Council into line with other benchmarked authorities.
Today, Morrison Construction introduced some of their local apprentices who are working on the UK Governments' Levelling Up Funded refurbishment project at the Northern Meeting Park in Inverness. All these apprentices have been recruited from the Highland area.
The by-election to elect a councillor to represent Ward 19 - Inverness South on The Highland Council has been won by Duncan Cameron McDonald - Independent who was one of the eight candidates who contested the vacancy. Voters in the ward went to the poll yesterday (Thursday 11 April) and the by-election count was held this morning in The Highland Council Headquarters in Inverness.
The Technology Placement Programme offers funding to businesses in the Highland Council area to cover up to 70% of the cost of employing a student or graduate. The Technology Placement Programme offers funding to businesses in the Highland Council area to cover up to 70% of the cost of employing a student or graduate.
Following the success of its Business Digital Grant scheme launched last year, The Highland Council is delighted to announce further funding. This is to help Highland companies access digital support alongside other business growth support.
The Highland Council is delighted to confirm a highly successful second year for Public Service Obligation (PSO) flights between Wick and Aberdeen. The period from April 2023 to March 2024 has seen a substantial increase in passenger numbers, with several months seeing over 1,000 passengers using the service, and overall the service has seen year on year growth of 25%.
Members of Highland Council, who met on Thursday 14 March 2024, approved a corporate Digital Ambition, which has been designed to deliver significant organisational change across Council services, recognising the current priorities within the organisation. The Strategy, which is embedded within the wider Council Delivery Plan, has been developed to focus attention and resources on areas of change which will deliver the greatest benefit to the Council.
The Council remains committed to supporting mentoring in our schools, including the support that is currently delivered through the MCR Pathways programme. Highland Council is currently undertaking a review of Employability Support provided by a number of different council services and how these relate to the work carried out by external partners and in our schools.
Highland Council members have considered and agreed a revised draft Highland Outcome Improvement Plan. The partnership plan has been reviewed and updated by the Community Planning Partnership.
Members at today's (14 March 2024) meeting of The Highland Council agreed the local authority's new draft Community Wealth Building Strategy. They were also asked to note that a period of public engagement on the draft will now begin, with a final strategy returning to full Council for consideration in September.
