 Local schemes are to include on-street communal recycling bins |
People living in flats are to be given more opportunities for recycling. The Scottish Executive is to allocate �47m over 14 years to councils where there are large numbers of people in high-rise buildings and tenements.
Local schemes are to include on-street communal recycling bins, and backcourt and door-to-door collections.
The ideas were piloted in parts of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Now Falkirk, Dundee, West Dunbartonshire and South Lanarkshire will join them.
The six councils will use different strategies and overall the move is expected to add about one per cent to Scotland's annual recycling rate.
Many householders at street level receive kerbside collection services.
However, about a third of all households in Scotland are in high-rise flats or tenements.
Environment Minister Ross Finnie said recent research showed that these households were not recycling.
"That's because services for many flats are local recycling centres or kerbside collection points some distance away," he said.
"Successful pilots across the country have shown that we can provide convenient, cost-effective recycling facilities for people living in flats.
"This now means that another half a million Scots really can reduce, reuse and recycle."
More than half a million people are expected to benefit from the six schemes.
Specific schemes
Dundee will receive �1.3m for on-street recycling containers for 7,200 properties and Edinburgh will receive a sum yet to be finalised for on-street recycling services for 60,000 homes.
Falkirk and Grangemouth will receive �1.4m towards a door-to-door collection service for 6,000 households while Glasgow will get �27m for a fortnightly backcourt collection service for 120,000 tenement households.
South Lanarkshire Council is to receive �3.3m for a blue bin recycling scheme to 15,000 homes in Thorntonhall and West Craigs while �2.9m goes to West Dunbartonshire Council for a fortnightly doorstep collection service to 12,000 homes.
Friends of the Earth Scotland welcomed the plan.
Chief executive Duncan McLaren said: "Each week our office receives calls from members of the public who want to recycle but cannot do so because they live in areas where doorstep recycling has not yet been introduced.
"Many of these cases involve people living in tenements and flats."
He said it was important to work closely with residents.
"The best recycling rates only come when local residents feel fully involved in developing the plans for their areas," he said.
Green MSP Patrick Harvie welcomed the move but said he was not sure the plan was enough to tackle poor recycling rates.
"The executive targets for recycling remain unambitious when compared to recycling rates in other European countries such as the Netherlands and Austria, and much more effort needs to go into reducing the amount of waste produced in the first place," he said.
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Successful pilots across the country have shown that we can provide convenient, cost-effective recycling facilities for people living in flats
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