Targets

 

 

 

While a greater number of people are separating their waste for recycling, there still needs to be more involvement from all households.

As the population grows, there is more waste being generated every year and recyclable materials are still being placed for disposal to landfill.

The European Union’s (EU) Landfill Directive has introduced landfill reduction targets for 2010, 2013 and 2020, which requires us to significantly reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste (food and garden waste, cardboard, paper, etc) sent to landfill. 

In addition, we must make our contribution to meet Scotland’s national recycling targets of 25% during 2006 and 30% in 2008.

The Scottish Executive will incur a fine if Scotland fails to meet its obligations under the UK targets.  The fines will be passed down to Scottish local councils who fail to meet their individual targets, which in turn may have an effect on the level of Council Tax payable by households.

We have worked hard to improve our recycling rates in recent years through the delivery of the Integrated Sustainable Waste Management Strategy for Aberdeenshire, but there is still much more work to be done, in partnership with householders.

The chart below shows the gap between what we are allowed to landfill without penalties and what we will actually landfill if we do not take action now.

 

 

As you can see, the challenges ahead of us (and the penalties if we fail) are considerable:

 

 

 

• The yellow plus red areas show the total amount of biodegradable waste expected to be produced if we do nothing
• The red area shows how much of this we will be allowed to landfill without penalty
• The yellow area shows the amount we need to reduce, to keep within the targets specified by the European Union’s (EU) Landfill Directive 

The amount of waste recycled has increased every year however; households grow, and continue to generate more rubbish.

We will continue to work in partnership with householders through the Waste Aware Scotland campaign to reduce the amount of waste disposed to landfill.