Household fines for bad recycling brings issue right to our own back doors

Household fines for bad recycling brings issue right to our own back doors - Scotsman editorial comment

Scotland has looked to cities such as Vancouver, Oslo and Milan for inspiration how to tackle the country’s woeful household recycling rates. Scots, it would seem, will now need to look seriously at what lies at their own back door – or back court – to help the country make a true difference to the amount of material we recycle and reuse.

The Scottish Government is considering giving councils the power to fine those who don't properly sort out their recycling. PIC: Contributed.

The personal responsibility to recycle what we can is now definitively being pressed by the Scottish Government, which is planning to give local authorities the power to issue fines and raise civil court actions for those whose recycling habits have yet to infiltrate the household routine. Similar civil powers are in place across England and Wales.

A default critique of the move might decry the ‘bin snoopers’ or ‘bin police’ who might be called in to check contents. That will be the weekly waste teams who are already trying to collect good recycling for local authorities to sell on, fund services and reduce the amount of landfill tax paid.

Sure, washing out fiddly pots and cans is time-consuming in a time-stretched day, but the long-term consequences of not recycling and producing more waste must by now clearly outweigh the inconvenience. Ask anyone who has lived in the trail of recurrent and devastating forest fires or a life-sucking drought about the real impact of climate change.

Education is, of course and always, a key part of the answer – as is buying less. Official figures show the Scottish average recycling rate for household waste was 44.9 per cent in 2019, with performance across local authorities ranging from a high of 67.69 per cent to a low of 17.13 per cent. Work clearly needs to be done somewhere, but at our own back doors seems to be the right place to start, whatever neighbourhood you live in.

Local authorities too must make it second nature for us to make recycling just part of a greener life. Services vary and collections differ across the country. Around £70m was pledged in 2021 to help councils help us recycle better. The funding was projected to reduce greenhouse gas emission by as much as 21,400 tonnes a year - the equivalent of taking 11,400 cars off the road. That’s not a bad return for washing out those yoghurt pots.