The level of recycling in the Western Isles is improving despite the 12.1% rate refelected in figures released by SEPA for the year January to December 2006.

Chairman of the Comhairle’s Environment and protective Services Committee, Norman A Macdonald, said:

”During this period the Comhairle’s efforts were concentrated on the construction phase of the anaerobic digester and composting plant at the Creed.

The SEPA validated recycling rate for April 2006 – March 2007 is 17%.  So despite the Creed plant not being fully operational, there was considerable progress in our performance when one looks at a 12 month period beginning April 2006 – March 2007.

In addition, the Creed plant is only now in the final stages of completion with performance trials still outstanding on the In-vessel compostors. Until these final performance trials have been completed, the compost produced cannot be regarded as ‘recycled’ for reporting purposes.

The anaerobic digester received approval under the Animal By-products Regulations only last month (August) so the full year impact of diversion will not be evident until the latter quarters of the 2007 reporting year.”

The Environment and Protective Services Committee last month approved a strategy for developing a network of community recycling Centres which will further assist in improving recycling rates for the Western Isles.

Traditionally, the Western Isles has faced the challenges of sparsity, high inter-island and mainland transport costs of waste and recyclates which have placed high overheads on recycling services.