Less than one-third of councils have met the national target to recycle half of their household waste, official figures show.

Nine local authorities recycled over 50% of their waste last year, with the remaining 23 lagging behind the Scottish Government target to recycle half of all waste by 2013.

Clackmannanshire, Stirling, Falkirk and Perth & Kinross recycled the highest proportion of waste at over 55%.

Clackmannanshire was also among the most improved councils, recycling 7% more waste than 2011, while Inverclyde and Moray boosted their recycling by 9% and 7% respectively to meet the 50% target.

East Renfrewshire, Fife and North Ayrshire were the three other local authorities to meet the target.

Shetland, Dumfries & Galloway, Orkney and Glasgow recycled the lowest proportion of waste ranging from 13% to 29%.

Orkney and Shetland were amongst the areas where performance regressed, recycling 7% and 3% less waste than 2011 respectively.

Recycling also slid by more than 3% in the Borders and Renfrewshire.

Scottish households recycled 41.2% of their waste on average in 2012. The Scottish Government's long-term aim is to recycle 70% of Scotland's waste by 2025.

Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said: "Today's figures show that over half of Scotland's local authorities are above the national recycling average, with nine already hitting the 50% target - two more than last year. We can also see that Scottish households produced 100,000 tonnes less waste last year."