Tuesday November 18th 2025
West Lothian Council headquarters
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Stuart Sommerville
Statutory fines and cameras in communal bin areas are among the ‘get tough’ options West Lothian will have to consider.
New Holyrood rules will likely bring in fines as legislation demands more recycling.
And West Lothian is keen to stress that the more it can recycle, the better off it will be – generating more cash rebates and cutting costs of waste collection and landfill.
Councillors heard from senior waste management officers at a meeting of the Performance Committee.
Bin contamination remains the biggest problem facing the council in the more than four million bin uplifts it carries out each year.
Welcoming improvements, councillors Danny Logue and Carl John raised the persistent problems with communal bins in Craigshill, Livingston, and how some neighbours persistently ignored warnings about contamination, and fly -tipping.
Craigshill has also become the target for travelling fly-tippers, Councillor John, highlighted instances of firms travelling from Edinburgh to tip rubbish in the area.
Councillor Logue asked: “Could you put cameras into these locations?”
Scott Anderson, the council’s Recycling and Waste manager said: “ We are looking at funding streams to put cameras into what we call hotspot areas where we are finding there is excess waste or where there’s third parties using bins that they shouldn’t be using.
“For any avoidance of doubt we have a duty of care as a local authority to provide recycling to every resident in West Lothian. We need to try to get this right.
“If we get the hotspots where people are fly-tipping or using the bins for commercial waste then we need to be catching these people and you’re right, the cameras will be the way to do it.”
A report to the committee said: “Overall, landfilled and incinerated waste have decreased compared to the previous years and increase in material being recycled.
“The household recycling rate has increased and tonnages are falling back to pre-pandemic levels with people returning to the workplace. This has also been impacted by an economic downturn resulting in less consumerism.”
The report added: “However, contamination remains a major issue resulting in the benefits not being fully experienced. As the plans stated above take effect we should see that the trend going forward would be a decrease in contamination which will be reflected in material but also a potential income for the material disposed.”
Most recent figures show that the council recycles 50.8% of its household waste.
The introduction of the Circular Economy Act and the end of the year is intended to drive recycling rates higher. In his presentation to the committee Mr Anderson said the legislation demanded “significant behavioural change from residents” and suggested that legislation could demand “potential enforcement through statutory fines.”
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