Glasgow has one of the lowest household recycling rates in Scotland

Glasgow has one of the lowest household waste recycling rates in Scotland according to a report presented to members of the scrutiny committee.

Only 27.2% of Glasgow’s household waste is recycled, making it the third lowest rate of recycling across all Scottish councils while the average rate of recycling for Scotland is 43.5 per cent.

The report also advised that the net cost of street cleaning per 1000 is £25.41 per person, with an increase of £5.75 per person since 2022 to 2023 making it the second highest figure in Scotland compared to Edinburgh.

The net cost per waste disposal per premise in Glasgow sits at £125.78 which is £21.40 higher than the Scottish average figure while street cleanliness scores were lower than the national average of 92% with Glasgow scoring 86.5%.

During the operational performance and delivery scrutiny committee Bailie Soryia Siddique said: “Glasgow is performing relatively poorly on quite a few accounts including net cost of street cleaning, rate of recycling and net cost of waste disposal but there is no explanation on that.

“I just wondered if one of the officers could provide that information.”

A council officer advised that it was difficult to compare Glasgow to any other local authority except Edinburgh.

They said: “A city like Glasgow has significant footfall and the city centre has a number of large scale events.

He pointed out the operation of a boat to clean the Clyde represents costs that other local bodies don’t have.

He said: “Over the next couple of years there will be significant investment going into this area to try and improve the cleanliness of the streets and the performance of the streets.

“That will have an increase on the overall cost of street cleansing.

“In terms of the recycling rate, recycling has stagnated for a number of years. We have seen slight improvement year on year but it has stayed at the 20% mark.

“We are going through a significant period of transformation of waste, which will bring a brand new recycling service to every house across the city.”