Kerbside recycling service survey

Angus Council is facing a financial crisis. We forecast a budget gap of £51.9 million over the next three years.

This equates to savings of 19.3% of the council’s base budget. That’s the equivalent of completely stopping:

all children, families and justice services
PLUS all waste services
PLUS all roads and transport services (£55m)

Deposit return scheme

The Deposit Return scheme (DRS) for Scotland was scheduled to launch in August 2023, introducing a 20p deposit on drinks containers including plastic bottles (except milk), cans and glass bottles.

The scheme is now likely to launch October 2025 at the earliest.

Effect on bin collections

A DRS will lead to a significant decrease in the amount of these materials going in household recycling bins.

We’re looking at how we can make bin collections more efficient both before and after the deposit return scheme starts.

We can save huge sums of money by changing the way we collect household waste and recycling. This includes recycling more as it’s cheaper to recycle.

By saving money through changes to kerbside recycling, we can reduce cuts to other services such as schools, social care and roads.

Survey

So we can understand what is important to Angus residents, we ran the kerbside recycling service survey from 14 November to 11 December 2022. The survey is now closed.

Respondents

Age

Most respondents were aged 35 or over, with fairly uniform response rates in each of the four age bands in this range, as seen in Chart 1. Just over 10 % of respondents were aged 34 or younger. There were only six respondents aged 16-20 however this is not unexpected given the low number of householders in this age range.

National Records of Scotland’s population data for 2021 shows that 64% of Angus’s population is comprised of those aged 35 or older (25% are aged 65 or over and 21% of respondents were in this age group). Fourteen percent of Angus residents are aged 21 - 34, with 10% of responses coming from this age group. Sixteen percent of the population is comprised of residents aged 1-15, who are not accounted for in this survey as they are not expected to be householders.

Population figures do not equate to householder status however do indicate that the response rate by age band is broadly representative of the Angus population.

Chart 1 - Number of survey responses by age band

Area

There were 83 responses with incomplete postcodes however of the remaining responses, each electoral ward was represented as tabled. While Arbroath East and Lunan accounted for the lowest proportion of responses at 7.84%, as a settlement, Arbroath accounted for 13.08% of responses.

Table 1 - Responses by electoral ward

Electoral Ward	% of responses
Brechin and Edzell	19.05%
Forfar and District	16.57%
Monifieth and Sidlaw	12.27%
Arbroath West, Letham and Friockheim	11.86%
Kirriemuir and Dean	10.32%
Montrose and District	10.32%
Carnoustie and District	8.41%
Arbroath East and Lunan	7.84%
Incomplete postcodes	3.37%

Number of permanent household members

Most respondents (42%) had two household members which is in line with Scottish Government statistics which show that in 2021 the average household size in Angus was 2.08 people per household.

Chart 2 - Number of permanent household members

Property type and bins used

Only two percent of households did not have their own bins i.e. they had shared communal bins or used sacks for their household waste. Most respondents lived in detached or semi-detached houses. The response rates by housing type are broadly in line with the housing stock associated with Angus according to Scottish Government statistics (from 2017), though it can be seen from Table 2 that there were fewer respondents living in flatted properties than is representative of the property type.

Table 2 - Responses by property type

Respondent property type	Count	% of responses	SG statistics	Difference
Detached	984	39.91%	32.60%	7.31%
Semi-detached	715	29.00%	20.00%	9.00%
Terraced	407	16.52%	21.40%	-4.88%
Flatted	233	9.46%	24.80%	-15.34%
Other	126	5.11%	1.20%	3.91%

Recycling habits

Most respondents (81%) said they try to recycle everything they can – of the remainder, 18% said they recycle most of the time. One percent of respondents said they recycle some of the time, and only five respondents said they don’t recycle, with the main reason being they don’t think it makes a difference.

Next: Recyclable waste