Town waste top of the refuse tip

Aug 1 2007 By Eddie Docherty, East Kilbride News

EAST Kilbride residents are among the worst producers of household waste in Scotland.

A recent report revealed how the town, as part of South Lanarkshire, is the fourth biggest producer of household waste goods with each house producing a staggering 1.41 tonnes of rubbish a year.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) findings, showed South Lanarkshire residents came behind only those in Clackmananshire, East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire in jettisoning junk.

The report was part of the agency’s Waste Data Digest, which is an annual report which looks at the level of household and business waste produced across Scotland.

Over 2005/06, the most recent figures, South Lanarkshire produced almost 200,000 tonnes of Scotland’s total of 2.9 million tonnes representing a Scottish average of 1.2 tonnes per household.

SEPA said the level of waste in each area changed according to considerations such as demography, geography and socio economic factors.

The socio economic aspect appeared to feature high in the figures given the fact the top three household polluting areas are among Scotland’s most affluent.

Much of the waste collected is sent for re-cycling, however, the rest is sent to landfill sites and with local authorities under pressure to reduce the amounts of waste they send to landfill, they are trying to encourage individuals to cut their own waste.

South Lanarkshire Council said it was an ongoing battle.

A spokesman said: “Waste minimisation is an issue we believe to be extremely important and in recent times we have carried out a number of activities to support this, including the introduction of a fortnightly collection of residual waste, which has encouraged householders to increase the amount of waste they recycle and reduce the amount of waste they produce.

“This has been supported by a waste awareness campaign, which has given information to householders on reducing, re-using and recycling their waste.

“We have also provided 10,000 home composters which has reduced the amount of waste.

“This has been supported by campaigns by the Waste and Resource Action Programme (WRAP), who now supply home composters at a heavily discounted price.”

He added: “We have also produced a draft Sustainable Development Strategy, which has a commitment to reducing the amount of waste produced and increasing the amount of recycled products we buy.

“This message has been delivered in talks to schools to encourage, for example, the use of refillable containers, rechargeable batteries and the purchase of low packaging goods.”

Waste Aware Scotland is another agency campaigning to reduce household waste.

Its mantra to the people of the country is “reduce, reuse and recycle”.

A spokeswoman said: “We’d encourage people to avoid over-packaged food and goods and buy things such as loose food or buy in bulk were possible.

“Also people can reduce the amount of plastic bags they collect by purchasing a bag for life either one that’s biodegradable or a cloth one.

“Other things they can do is cut down on unwanted mail by making sure they contact the Royal Mail when the move, or contact the Mailing Preference Service which can help stop unwanted mail.

“Other things to think about are home composting, repairing broken goods rather than dumping them, and using more services such as hire shops and libraries to obtain goods.

“All these things help reduce household waste.”