People probably don’t immediately think of economic opportunities when they dutifully take their bins out each week.

Putting milk cartons in one bin and general waste in another hardly evokes thoughts of financial growth and jobs potential.

And why should it when we’re in the midst of an unprecedented global health emergency? But for government and councils, this is exactly the sort of thing they should be thinking about, and with some urgency.

Despite the efforts of people across West Dunbartonshire, the local authority only managed to recycle 43.5 per cent of household waste in 2018, the most recent year for which figures are available.

That’s below the national average, which in itself is far lower than many other European countries.

Obviously it’s bad for the environment to dispatch too much waste to landfill – in 2018 West Dunbartonshire sent 19,624 tonnes there.

But there’s a money issue here too.

Scotland is missing a major trick by not creating its own recycling facilities.

They could enable us to deal with more of the waste we recycle, and create jobs and growth in the process.Clydebank is exactly the kind of area that would benefit from investment in new recycling facilities.

After all, Scotland exports more than 1.2 million tonnes of recycled waste each year.

Some of that goes to England, some to the rest of Europe, and even overseas to different continents.

That’s bad for the planet in terms of the emissions used to transport it, and bad for our economy which would benefit from the income generated by more domestic recycling.

Worse, the SNP government recently admitted that Scotland only recycles two per cent of its own plastic waste.

That’s another shocking statistic which reveals the nationalists’ intransigence when it comes to the potential of the circular economy.

This change in approach might help with compliance too.

Residents would be far more willing to carefully sort through their own household waste if they knew in doing so they were helping a local business.

Covid-19 has brought the economy to its knees, here and everywhere else.

 So the Scottish Government must start thinking nowabout how to deal with the future challenges of unemployment, lack of growth and decreasing revenue from tax receipts.

Creating the ability for Scotland to deal with more of its recycled waste would be the perfect place to start.