Zero Waste Scotland welcomed the announcement that Scotland’s national household recycling rate reached 45.5 percent in 2016, with one council, East Renfrewshire, becoming the first Scottish council to break through the 60 percent mark. The announcement was made on September 26, the same day that Zero Waste Scotland published a report on how recycling continues to help the fight against climate change. Commenting on the news, Zero Waste Scotland Chief Executive Iain Gulland said, “It’s encouraging that Scotland’s recycling rate continues to grow and especially good to see some councils getting up to and even breaking the 60 percent mark, which is a fantastic achievement. “Overall we’d like to see more action being taken, especially in areas where recycling performance has slowed or fallen back. It’s vital that councils continue to invest in high quality recycling services, including educating local residents, if we are to reach national targets. At times of stretched budgets it makes little sense to pay millions of pounds to landfill materials which could have been recycled.” Zero Waste Scotland’s Carbon Metric report adds further detail to Scotland’s recycling progress, showing how much carbon emissions they save by reducing waste and increasing recycling. Key findings of the report, which covers 2014-15, include: • The carbon impacts of Scotland’s waste have fallen every year between 2011-2015, and 26 percent overall, thanks to increased recycling and reduced use of landfill. • Household waste accounts for less than 25 percent of all Scottish waste. However, in 2015, household waste accounted for 57 percent of the total carbon impacts of Scotland’s waste, 9 percent more than it did in 2011. • The five most carbon intensive waste materials make up just 6 percent of Scotland’s waste by weight, but nearly a third of associated carbon impacts. • Food waste is the most carbon intensive waste material, generating 15 percent of carbon impacts in 2014, and 17 percent in 2015. • Textile waste is also high impact, accounting for just 0.2 percent of waste, but 4 percent of waste impacts in 2014, and 0.3 percent of waste, but 5 percent of waste impacts in 2015. “Our ground-breaking carbon metric shows that recycling continues to have an important part to play in the fight against climate change. If Scottish households recycled just 10 percent more of their waste, we would save over 148 thousand tonnes of CO2e, the equivalent of over 22,000 flights around the world,”Gulland added. “This should be a tonic to those who do all they can to reduce and recycle waste and it should encourage others to do strive to do more.”