Time for tenements as Glasgow rolls out new recycling service

Published: 1 April 2016

Today (Monday, 4 April) marks the start of a new recycling service for residents living in tenements, flats and high rises - the first in more than a decade.

This week Glasgow City Council starts delivering new food waste caddies to multi-dwelling properties across the city.

New communal food waste bins will also be provided, with each resident receiving an individual indoor caddy, a year's supply of liners and an information leaflet about how to use the new service and detailing which items can and cannot be recycled to help avoid contamination.

These are being delivered from early April, starting with homes in the north west of the city and rolled out across all parts of Glasgow by the end of the year.

It's the first new service for flatted properties since the introduction of the blue recycling bins in 2005.

Scott Armstrong, Glasgow City Council's Recycling Manager, said: "This recycling programme is both ambitious and challenging, involving a lot of careful planning.

"We've got 187,000 properties and more than 400,000 residents to deliver the new food waste caddies to.  There will be challenges, particularly when access to the buildings is not always guaranteed.  

"The council is committed to recycling as much as it can from recycling collections and have made sure that these new services are supported with information to help residents sort their waste appropriately."

In addition to the food waste collections, Glasgow is also improving its recycling services for tenements and other flatted properties by providing additional blue bins.

Every resident living in a flatted property will also receive a strong, reusable bag to help carry recycling to the communal bins and an information leaflet explaining what can be recycled.

This latest phase of new recycling services follows January's launch of food waste collections for the city's kerbside properties.  This involved delivering approx. 113,000 food waste caddies to residents living in kerbside properties.  These residents are required to put their food waste into their brown bin.

These new services are aimed at making it easier for residents to recycle more of their waste and reduce the amount currently sent to landfill. With over 400,000 residents living in flatted properties in Glasgow, this phase of the project marks one of the biggest recycling initiatives in Scotland. 

The new services are being supported by a £3.2m grant from the Scottish Government delivered through Zero Waste Scotland to help Glasgow improve its current level of recycling. Glasgow sends nearly 165,000 tonnes* of household waste to landfill annually, and a recent analysis showed that 30 per cent of the waste in domestic bins consisted of food waste which equates to nearly 50,000 tonnes per year, enough to fill Glasgow's Tollcross International Swimming Pool almost 70 times over.
*based on latest SEPA figures (2014)

Delivery Dates

The delivery of kitchen caddies and multi-dwelling property food waste bins begins on 4 April 2016 with the first collections beginning from 11 April 2016 to all flatted households in the North West area of Glasgow.

Further roll-out of the programme is as follows (approximate dates):

• North West: 4/4/16 - 1/7/16
• North East: 1/7/16 - 17/8/16
• South East and City Centre: 17/8/16 - 6/10/16
• South West: 6/10/16 - 7/11/16

Tenements will receive a grey 240 litre communal food recycling bin. Other flat developments including the city's high rise properties require 500 litre communal bins.

Zero Waste Scotland

Zero Waste Scotland is funded by the Scottish Government to support the delivery of its Zero Waste Plan and other low carbon and resource efficiency policy priorities.

Zero Waste Scotland is helping Scotland to become more efficient in its use of resources. We are supporting progress towards Scotland's ambitious zero waste targets and enabling Scottish society to reap the benefits of more efficient use of resources.