Over the last 7 years, various ongoing initiatives in council premises have seen a 21% increase in the amount of waste collected for recycling and a 13% decrease in the amount of residual waste sent to landfill by March 2013. This has been enabled by recycling bins that were provided to all Council buildings. There was a roll-out of new recycling bins for additional waste streams during 2014 including food waste.
Other initiatives include regular WEEE and battery collections as well as free toner and cartridge collections, and an online internal furniture and resource reuse scheme, Requip. This enables internal sites to share assets and avoid purchasing new items and reuse existing resources. The internal website is used to publicise new initiatives and service updates with staff, as well as promoting ongoing waste management practices (e.g. avoiding unnecessary printing, avoid using paper cups, reuse and recycle resources). Good practice has been disseminated by getting articles featured in local press and recycling company newsletters.
Aberdeenshire manages internal waste minimisation by means of a dedicated Waste Minimisation Officer, for which a role was created in 2008 (Remade Scotland, 2009).