Why every council is different
Bin colours are set locally, so they vary between neighbouring authorities. In Glasgow, blue is paper and card, grey is plastics and metals, purple is glass, brown is food and garden waste and green is non-recyclable. In Edinburgh, the green bin is the mixed recycling bin and glass goes in a separate kerbside box.
Same country, opposite meaning for the same colour. If you have moved between the two, that is why your habits stopped working — the details are in our Glasgow bin colours and recycling in Edinburgh guides.
What is consistent everywhere
The rules that do not change are mostly about contamination and about materials with legal handling requirements. Rinsing matters everywhere. Bagged recycling cannot be sorted anywhere. And WEEE (anything with a plug or a battery) — anything with a plug or a battery — is legally barred from landfill regardless of which council you live in.
Plasterboard is separate everywhere, because gypsum (the mineral inside plasterboard) in landfill conditions can generate hydrogen sulphide. Fridges are gas-bearing everywhere. Those are national rules, not local preferences.
- Rinse food residue off everything
- Never bag recycling in communal bins
- Nothing with a plug goes to landfill
- Plasterboard must stay separate
- Fridges must be de-gassed
- Textiles and batteries need their own route
Want a diversion figure you can check?
Over 80% from landfill, reported separately from energy recovery, with the paperwork to back it.
The landfill ban changed the picture
The Scottish Government's ban on sending biodegradable municipal waste to landfill is the single biggest change in how the country handles waste. Councils can no longer default to burying black bin waste and have had to build or buy treatment capacity instead.
In Glasgow that is the Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre at Polmadie, which the council reports diverts around 90% of its waste from landfill. In Edinburgh it is energy-from-waste treatment at Millerhill. Both are covered in Glasgow landfill sites and Edinburgh landfill sites.
Energy recovery is better than burial. It is not recycling, and any company that folds the two together into one impressive number is telling you less than it looks.
How to check a recycling claim
"We recycle everything" costs nothing to say. Three questions test it. What is your SEPA registration number — ours is WCR/R/3002381 and it is on the public register. Will I get a waste transfer note. And can you give me a diversion figure, separating recycling from energy recovery.
A legitimate operator answers all three without hesitation. We publish over 80% diversion rather than a number in the high nineties because 80-something is what our figures support.
The full check, including the red flags worth walking away from, is in how to choose a licensed waste removal company in Scotland.
