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An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland

Household waste - January to December 2011

Published 21 December

Official Statistics released today by statisticians at the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) show that Scotland's local authorities recycled 40.1% of the household waste they collected in 2011.

Data for every one of Scotland's 32 local authorities are available on SEPA's website along with the figures for the whole of Scotland.

This is the first 12 month data set to use the updated recycling rate calculation required by the Scottish Government's Zero Waste Plan. Previous quarterly results, which are also available on the website, have been published by SEPA throughout the year but this is the first an annual calendar year figure has been available.

The new definition of household waste and clarification of what counts and what does not count towards the recycling rate is available in the Zero Waste Plan – guidance for local authorities, published in March 2011.

SEPA will no longer be publishing Official Statistics for recycling on a quarterly basis.  In future SEPA will publish waste data on an annual basis only, in calendar years rather than financial years. This will bring SEPA in line with European reporting of waste data which is on a calendar year basis.

Ends

Notes to editors

• The quarterly figures for January – March 2011 are available at online as Quarter 4 for the 2010/2011 year. However, these were calculated under the previous definition of Local Authority Collected Municipal Waste.
  
• As part of compiling the 2011 figures, the figures for January to March 2011 have been re-classified under the new household waste definition.
  
• More information on the difference in classification is available on our website, but in summary:

1. Some waste outputs are no longer classified as "recycling" but as "recovery" because of the poor quality of recyclate. These are recycled organic outputs from MBT plants and metals and ash from incineration.
   
2. Some wastes that were previously classified as household are now classified as commercial.  These are street sweeping waste, gully waste and street recycling bins.

• To add clarity and transparency to the data during the transition from the old guidance to the new, SEPA has also made available the recycling rate calculated according to the old guidance. These figures are for comparison only and are included to show Scotland's continued recycling effort.