The Scottish Government has promised to provide an extra £7m of funding for council waste and recycling services. This follows the release of figures which revealed that the country is a long way off meeting its 2010 target to recycle 40 per cent of municipal waste by the end of 2010.

The figures showed that Scotland only managed to achieve a 35.9 per cent recycling rate for the time period of October 2008 to September 2009. The data was collated by the government waste database WasteDataFlow and published by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA).

Richard Lochhead, environment secretary said,

“18 of our 32 authorities have met the target. These, targets, therefore, are attainable. To help the 14 under achieving local authorities we have announced an extra £7m for local government funding. We are also planning a national campaign to get everyone in the recycling habit.”