Scotland’s largest council is one of the poorest performers in terms of recycling household waste, as pointed out by recently published statistics.

Glasgow was responsible for producing over 66,000 tonnes of waste across this year’s second quarter yet only recycled around 26.8 per cent. The rest was sent to landfill. Figures released by Sepa, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency , display a worrying national recycling rate of just over 43.5%.

In the capital city of Edinburgh, over 35 per cent of household waste was either recycled or composted. Sepa’s latest set of figures coincide with new and improved methods of presenting household recycling performances in Scotland, with non-domestic properties now excluded.

Across the country, 719,204 tonnes’ worth household waste was made from April to June. Around 313,258 tonnes of this were either recycled or composted. Scotland is home to 32 local authorities, 12 of which managed to successfully recycle 50 per cent or more of the total household waste that was created by residents.

The best performing authorities were North Ayrshire, Falkirk, and East Renfrewshire as they all recycled almost 59 per cent of household waste. Glasgow came in third from bottom and was followed only by the Shetland Islands and Dumfries.

Fife Council was the producer of the second biggest amount of household waste and came behind Glasgow as 59,519 tonnes were collected between April to June. Around 57 per cent of that amount was recycled.