Some of the largest councils, including Glasgow, Aberdeen and Highland, have failed to make major improvements in their recycling rates. This jeopardises the Scottish Executive’s aim of recycling 25% of municipal waste by next year.

The councils defend their performances, and insist that recycling has increased in the last few months. But environmentalists condemn them as “laggards” and their record as “lamentable”.

With the latest figures from the government’s Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), the Sunday Herald has compiled a league table of local authorities’ recycling rates, for last year. The worst performer was Midlothian Council, which only recycled or composted 4.7% of its waste in 2004-05.

It failed to organise kerbside collections of paper, glass or garden rubbish from households because it was one of the last councils to receive funding from the Executive. As a result, more than 95% of its waste – 52,182 tonnes – was dumped in landfill sites.

The second-worst council was Dumfries and Galloway, which only managed to recycle or compost 5.6% of its waste. Scottish Borders managed no more than 7.8%, Highland 9%, Glasgow 9.4% and Aberdeen 11.2%.

These figures compare to an average of 17.3% for Scotland as a whole last year. A few councils, including Fife, South Lanarkshire, Stirling and Clackmannanshire succeeded in topping 25%.

The Scottish Green Party pointed out that many of the councils were run by the same political parties that control the Executive. “The showing by some LibDem and Labour councils is unacceptable ,” said Shiona Baird MSP, co-convener of the Greens.

“Compared to some other European countries our record as a whole is lamentable. People want to recycle and need help to do it but the politicians in charge, in the failing areas, have let them down.”

According to Baird, the challenges now were “getting the laggards to catch up” and reducing the amount of waste produced in the first place. “The Green Party solution is a zero waste strategy aimed at waste elimination, including a rethink of product design, manufacture and packaging.”

“Other countries have done this and achieved amazing results ,” she said. “It is time Scotland did the same.”

The total amount of municipal waste in 2004-05 was 3.4 million tonnes, 3% more than in the previous year. Over 2.7 million tonnes were disposed of as landfill.

Friends of the Earth Scotland joined the Greens in condemning the recycling policy of some Scottish councils. “It’s particularly depressing to see recycling rates remaining stagnant or apparently falling in some places,” said the group’s chief executive, Duncan McLaren.

“If Scotland is to meet its target of 25% recycling by next year, then more councils need to emulate Clackmannanshire and Stirling, both of whom improved their recycling rates by over 10 percentage points in the last year.”

McLaren suggested that the increased recycling rates were encouraging, but called on ministers to tackle the relentless rise in the amount of waste being generated.

To help meet its target , the Executive has provided over £300 million to help local authorities increase their waste recycling rates. “We expect every local authority to improve significantly their record on recycling,” stated an Executive spokesman.

“We accept that some local authorities with high-density populations and high proportions of tenemented properties face greater challenges. We are piloting various approaches with local authorities across Scotland to determine the most cost-effective way of delivering collection services to these properties.”

The City of Glasgow Council claimed the Executive had set it a recycling target of only 14% by 2006, which the council was “on course” to attain. “We have made huge strides in recent years,” insisted a spokesman.

“A crude comparison against other local authorities will always show Glasgow in a poor light given the concentration of tenement properties in the city and the cost and logistical problems of providing them a kerbside service.”

Councillor Kate Dean, the LibDem leader of Aberdeen City Council, blamed the “disappointing” figures on the situation inherited from the previous administration. “We started from an extremely low base,” she said. “But we are rapidly moving up the table.”

Highland Council said new kerbside collections and recycling centres started in April would increase recycling rates to around 18%. Similar claims were made by Midlothian, West Dunbartonshire, Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway councils.

Councillor Alison Hay, environment spokeswoman for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, strongly backed councils. “Local authorities all started from different positions and some will be further ahead at this stage than others,” she stated.

“It is too simple to point the finger just at local authorities. Everyone has a role to play. Further improvements will only be possible if society as a whole works with us to reduce the amount of waste being produced and to increase the amount that is recycled.”