Council thanks Aberdeenshire residents for recycling 1,800 tonnes more in 2024
Aberdeenshire residents are recycling more and more with new figures revealing the household recycling rate climbing to 44.7% in 2024—up from 43% in 2023 and 40.2% in 2022.
That 1.7% shift in household recycling across Aberdeenshire over last year is significant, representing more than 1,800 tonnes of additional recycling in 2024 compared to 2023.
Aberdeenshire now sits slightly above the Scottish national average of 43.5%, placing the region in 18th place out of 32 local authorities.
Cllr Alan Turner, Chair of the council’s Infrastructure Services Committee, said: “We want to say a sincere thank you to everyone who continues to recycle. It’s your efforts that have helped to improve the recycling rate and reduce the environmental impact of waste across Aberdeenshire.
“If you're looking to do even more, recycling food waste is one of the best ways to help—it makes a big difference in the recycling rate and is the most commonly found waste in kerbside bins.”
In Aberdeenshire, around 10,000 tonnes of food waste is thrown out by residents every year. That’s the equivalent of more than 21 million tins of baked beans—a significant amount of food that is being bought but never eaten.
More than 20% of what goes into black-lid bins is food waste, despite food waste recycling collections being available at the kerbside each week.
Residents can get a free indoor and outdoor food waste caddy from their local recycling centre or service point if theirs is broken or even if they need more than one.
Food waste bag liners for the caddies can also be collected from household recycling centres, council libraries, or you can tie one to your outdoor food caddie and the collection crew will leave you a new roll where they have stock available.
Everything in a food caddy heads to Keenan Recycling where, through a process called anaerobic digestion, it is broken down to produce biogas that can generate electricity, heat homes, or even fuel vehicles. What’s left becomes a nutrient-rich digestate that is used as fertiliser for agriculture. Some food waste is also turned into compost, helping to grow the next generation of crops.
SEPA carbon reporting, measuring the whole-life carbon impact of waste—from resource extraction and manufacturing right through to waste management emissions—makes clear the environmental benefit of 2024’s additional recycling.
Household waste represented more than 282,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) emissions in 2023, now reduced by more than 16,000 tonnes of tCO2e to around 266,000 tCO2e in 2024.
Carbon accounting is typically measured in tCO2e to show the impact of various greenhouse gases in terms of how much carbon dioxide would create the same level of global warming.