Scottish Borders Council's place among the country's highest landfillers of rubbish was cemented in 2018 when the amount of waste buried in the ground even exceeded the 2011 tonnage and stood at a distinctly unimpressive 58.4% of all garbage generated by the region's households.
According to figures just published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) the Borders' 2018 percentage was the second highest in mainland Scotland, only exceeded by Glasgow City Council on 68.3%.
The Borders' consistently high annual landfill tonnages - 30,671 tonnes buried last year - should come to an end following the recent decision to award a multi-million pounds contract which will involve transporting all waste out of the region for treatment and disposal in Lanarkshire. However, hundreds of lorry movements each year will do little for air purity and will generate a significant volume of harmful emissions.
The SEPA data reveals that neighbouring councils managed to landfill far less than SBC. The table of statistics for all 32 local authorities includes Midlothian 29.4%, East Lothian 42.9%, Dumfries & Galloway 44.2%, City of Edinburgh 52.1%, Fife 42.6% and West Lothian 24.4%.
A trawl back through the numbers for previous years shows SBC landfilled 28,688 tonnes of household waste (53.3%) in 2011. The figures for the last two years were: 2017 30,593 tonnes (57.2%); 2016 30,702 tonnes (59.1%).
On the other side of the waste management coin, when it comes to recycling the Scottish Borders remains rooted close to the bottom of the national recycling league. Performance has been hampered ever since councillors sanctioned the scrapping of garden refuse collections. And the recent cut in opening hours for local recycling centres cannot have done much to boost the drive.to divert waste away from the landfill option.
In 2018 only 20,365 tonnes of collected waste (38.8% of the total) was recycled, more than a full percentage point less than was achieved in 2017 (39.9%, 21,234 tonnes). Next door Dumfries & Galloway diverted 28.4% of waste from landfill and recycled a further 22.1%.
The recycling statistics for other nearby councils included East Lothian 51.8%, Midlothian 51.4%, City of Edinburgh 44.7%, Fife 54.7% and West Lothian 48.5%.
Now it is all change after a major procurement exercise by SBC which followed the well documented and costly collapse of a waste management project in 2015.
The council announced in July that around 42,000 tonnes of municipal waste produced in the Borders each year was to be hauled by road the 50 miles from Galashiels to Forth, on the West Lothian-Lanarkshire border to be treated for disposal.
A contract award notice published by SBC informed readers "A decision was taken not to expand the Easter Langlee landfill site once its current capacity is exhausted (by mid-2019) but instead develop a new Waste Transfer Station in its place." The new station has cost £5.5 million.
The notice added: "This will enable the Authority to comply with the ban on sending biodegradable municipal waste to landfill which comes into effect from 1st January 2021 by exporting waste out of the Borders for treatment and disposal. The Authority reserves the right to take responsibility for haulage for part of the Contract Waste to the Contractors Delivery Site in order to gain benefits through utilising its own Authority Haulage Vehicles."
The contract won by Forth-based Levenseat is worth £47 million.
As well as the multiple trips which will now be needed to Levenseat's treatment centre SBC sends its dry recyclabes on an even longer journey - to J B Recycling's premises in Hartlepool, 108 miles from Galashiels.
The contract won by Forth-based Levenseat is worth £47 million.
As well as the multiple trips which will now be needed to Levenseat's treatment centre SBC sends its dry recyclabes on an even longer journey - to J B Recycling's premises in Hartlepool, 108 miles from Galashiels.
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