COUNCIL chiefs have been praised for their efforts to recycle more household waste.

Official statistics released yesterday by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) show that both Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire are performing above the national average when it comes to avoiding the need to ditch garbage in landfill.

East Renfrewshire recycles a higher percentage of its household waste than any other local authority in Scotland.

It sent 31,937 tonnes of its total 47,564 tonnes of waste for recycling, at a rate of more than 67 per cent.

Renfrewshire managed to recycle around 48 per cent of its waste – above the national average of 45 per cent, is still down by around 1 per cent on the previous year.

For the first time, SEPA also included in its report the ‘carbon impact metric.’

This is a measure developed by Zero Waste Scotland of the whole-life carbon impacts of waste, from resource extraction and manufacturing emissions right through to waste management emissions.

East Renfrewshire Council registered a score of 1.01 carbon impact per person – lower than the Scottish average of 1.08 per person.

Renfrewshire, however, scored above average at 1.11.

Across Scotland, the total amount of household waste generated last year was 2.46 million tonnes – a drop of 38,153 tonnes from the 2016 figure.

This is the sixth consecutive decrease in household waste landfilled since 2011.

And, for the first time, 2017 saw more Scottish waste being recycled than sent to landfill.

A spokesman for Zero Waste Scotland welcomed the latest figures.

He said: “We are pleased that the recycling rate in Scotland continues to increase. Zero Waste Scotland will continue to provide advice to all local authorities as to how they can improve the quality of the material collected and to make collection services more sustainable.

“The majority of local authorities have seen positive growth in recycling performance, despite challenges around recyclate quality, market prices and availability.”

Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said: “It’s great to see recycling exceed landfill for the first time ever - particularly as the stats are released during Recycling Week - but I think we still need to see more progress, particularly in our bigger cities.

“The Scottish Government has big plans for tackling waste plastics, in particular by introducing a Deposit Return Scheme, to further incentivise people to recycle.We’ve also introduced a Household Recycling Charter for local authorities to sign up to, which is making the approach to recycling less confusing for households, and creating a more consistent and efficient system for authorities.. We may consider further measures if the pace of improvement does not increase.”

“The Scottish Government has big plans for tackling waste plastics, in particular by introducing a Deposit Return Scheme, to further incentivise people to recycle.We’ve also introduced a Household Recycling Charter for local authorities to sign up to, which is making the approach to recycling less confusing for households, and creating a more consistent and efficient system for authorities.”