GLASGOW is bottom of the pile in Scotland when it comes to recycling household waste.

GLASGOW is bottom of the pile in Scotland when it comes to recycling household waste.

The city's dire record in disposing of its waste in an environmentally-friendly manner has been highlighted in Scottish Government figures published today.

They show only 17.9% is recycled or composted - the lowest rate of any of Scotland's 32 local authorities.

And the figures also reveal Glasgow dumped 300,415 tonnes last year in landfill sites.

That was more than 100,000 tonnes higher than Edinburgh, which has the second highest landfill total, although Glasgow has a much bigger population.

Scotland's Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead was meeting Glasgow council leaders today for talks on how to improve the city's performance.

He described the practice of waste ending up as landfill as "increasingly unacceptable".

Mr Lochhead said the aim of today's meeting was to try to give Scotland's largest city a greener outlook.

He added: "It has been suggested Glasgow's recycling performance is, in part, down to the number of people in the city living in tenements and tower blocks.

"This may be the case and it is one of the issues today's meeting will seek to address.

"As Scotland's biggest local authority, even a small increase would make a significant impact on the overall Scottish figure.

"A pot of £7.5million is available to fund community recycling projects and I would be delighted to see communities across Glasgow thinking about how to take advantage of what this offers."

The figures made available today reveal Glasgow produced 365,799 tonnes of municipal waste in 2007.

Of that, only 65,385 tonnes - 17.9% - was recycled. The remaining 300,414 tonnes were landfilled, including 182,359 tonnes of biodegradable waste.

The only other council that recycled less than 20% of its waste was Shetland, where 18.6% of its 12,146 tonnes was recycled.

Clackmannanshire and Moray led the way with 42.9%, followed by South Ayrshire on 41.3% and East Ayrshire on 40.5%.

Edinburgh produced 255,206 tonnes of waste and landfilled 185,847 tonnes. The capital's recycling rate was 27.3%.

Mr Lochhead said the figures showed a steady improvement, with 31.2% of waste in Scotland now being recycled, an increase of 4.1% on the previous year.

However, he added: "With ambitious targets now in place to achieve a Zero Waste Scotland, I want to see more being done, particularly in those areas where performance is below par.

"We need to make it as easy as possible for everyone to recycle and councils have a major role to play. "

The figures were released after the Evening Times conducted a survey last week of west Scotland councils to see who did what on the issue.

It revealed 31% of Glasgow households do not have any type of home recycling bin, but in East Renfrewshire nearly 99% of homes had access to recycling boxes and bins.

Patrick Harvie, the Green Party MSP, blamed the city's poor performance on a "lack of political will" by the council.

He said: "Glasgow has consistently been the worst city in Scotland for recycling and I think it is a historic lack of political will that is the problem.

"The city's Labour administration has always seemed more likely to find excuses, such as saying tenements are a problem, than to find solutions.

"Other cities in Europe cracked these problems years ago.

"It is something Glasgow should be doing a great deal better. Parts of the city are now just getting their first blue bags and even they do not carry certain types of waste, like cardboard and glass.

It is a poor show."

Mr Harvie said the council should be "more visible" in encouraging householders and the business community to recycle waste.

He added: "Everything is difficult until you figure it out. There are community projects in Glasgow that are a lot better on this issue than the council."

Responding to today's figures, a Glasgow City Council spokesman said: "It is true the city has some of the lowest household recycling rates in Scotland and this has been well documented.

"The major reason is the large number of tenements in Glasgow. Over the last two years we have been extending a project introducing recycling to tenements by means of blue sacks being issued to householders and large blue recycling bins being placed in communal back courts.

"This is expected to raise our recycling rate increase to 23% by the end of 2009.

"It should also be noted that while we are at the bottom of the league for recycling we still manage to recycle some 60,000 tonnes of material each year, which is a huge amount by anyone's standards.

"Glasgow has more than 90,000 householders using blue bins to recycle dry waste, 55,000 contributing to council-run composting programmes.

"In addition, there are many more using the city's network of 370 recycling points on a regular basis.

"We are fully committed to working with citizens and businesses to reduce Glasgow's reliance on landfill and make better use of recycling opportunities.

"The council is investing heavily in recycling and bringing forward plans to improve access to recycling in tenements - a particular challenge almost certainly greater in Glasgow than anywhere else in Scotland."