A survey conducted by The Echo has found that the majority of people in South Edinburgh are happy with the way the council has encouraged recycling.

Answering questions on recycling access and activity, local people expressed their thoughts about how recycling effects their day-to-day lives, highlighting a number of key issues.

Almost all surveys returned reflected the public's general satisfaction at the council's efforts to help them reduce, reuse and recycle. However, concern was raised at the sparse collection of pavement recycling facilities, with over half of the 26 surveys returned addressing the issue of kerbside boxes. It appears that there too few boxes in certain areas of South Edinburgh, with some streets seemingly excluded from the scheme.

However, all people who complained of the lack of facilities went on to say that they use alternative facilities, such as supermarket car parks, to recycle their waste.

Three quarters of those surveyed said that they recycle up to fifty per cent of all their waste, with a minority saying they recycle all waste.

Among the items most often recycled by people in South Edinburgh were plastic, glass, cardboard, paper, electronic goods, clothes and shoes, while nearly all who returned the survey claimed they regularly recycled and encouraged others to do so. Moreover, the survey also showed that many residents of South Edinburgh would be keen to see some form of improvement in the service. The most common cause highlighted was the call for a plastic kerbside pickup to be made available. All but four surveys returned highlighted the need for this, with one person saying, "The service is great – if only they had plastic pickups". The recycling scheme has been in place for a considerable time and is having a great effect with increasing numbers of people in South Edinburgh "going green".

Councillor Robert Aldridge, Environment Leader, said, "We are absolutely delighted by the enthusiastic way that residents of South Edinburgh have embraced the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle message.

"Unfortunately, plastics recycling is something we cannot currently offer as part of the kerbside multimaterial collection scheme but residents can recycle their plastic bottles at each of the city's Community Recycling Centres or in the on-street packaging banks across the city. We are currently reviewing our recycling strategy and the issue of wider plastics recycling is under consideration, along with other waste streams such as food waste and improvements to the garden waste scheme.

"We are on target to meet the thirty per cent recycling rate goal for the current financial year. However, there is no room for complacency, and we must continue to make it as easy as possible for people to follow the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle message.

"The Council is fully committed to increasing recycling rates in the city and we are working towards our forty per cent target, which we aim to achieve by 2012," said Mr Aldridge.

Anyone who would like to find out more about kerbside recycling in their area can contact the council team on 529 3030.

by Stuart Wilson and Stewart Plenderleith