3.8 Community Sector Involvement

The National Waste Strategy: Scotland makes it clear that there needs to be a fundamental shift in attitudes and behaviour of all waste producers in Scotland.

The Scottish Waste Awareness Group (SWAG) will plan public awareness campaigns on domestic waste management throughout Scotland as part of the Waste Aware Scotland programme.

These campaigns will provide stakeholders with an understanding of the problem, suggest optimal solutions and provide a means for taking action. One of the key components will be to match the campaigns with ‘real’ infrastructure – encouragement to make changes that can be supported and enhanced. Concurrently public perception values and needs will be considered. This ensures stakeholder participation and involvement and guides stakeholders towards making their own decisions within their local area. All of which is geared to producing greater participation within local schemes.

Each campaign will focus on a specific waste management issue (e.g. kerbside campaign, recycling point campaign etc.) and will be run concurrently with the implementation of the Tayside AWP. Each campaign will comprise of three basic stages:

• Before survey – to assess attitudes and behaviour towards the identified waste prevention issue prior to the intervention strategy.
  

• Campaign – intensive localised intervention strategy run initially for a 6-month period working in partnership with the key stakeholders within the area including the Waste Strategy Area Co-ordinator, the local authority, the local community and voluntary groups, retailers’, private waste industry etc.
  

• After survey – to assess attitudes and behaviour towards the identified waste prevention issue after the intervention strategy, and to appraise the effectiveness of the different methods employed.

This format will allow SWAG to monitor progress towards more sustainable public waste management behaviour, and to develop models of good practice and Best Value for changing public attitudes to reduction, reuse and recycling. A rolling programme of Waste Aware Campaigns in conjunction with AWP time-scales will be implemented across Scotland.

Action 13
A Tayside education and awareness group will be established to promote the aims of the AWP with an initial focus on household waste. Members of the group will include SWAG, the three Tayside local authorities and SEPA.

Action 14
Establish and maintain a directory of waste management services. This will allow all residents of Tayside to identify what services are available to deal with differing waste materials in their locality. The directory will also be available through each of the local authorities’ web sites.