Rural Affairs and Environment Minister Richard Lochhead
Holyrood Parliament
January 24, 2008
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I am grateful for the opportunity to outline the Government's policies for a zero waste Scotland.
In 1999, the Scottish people voted for a Parliament that would improve our environment. Scotland must play its full part in being a good guardian of the planet and an exemplar for the world.
Managing waste as a resource is an important part of achieving sustainable economic growth and a greener Scotland. Scotland's record prior to the Scottish Parliament was dreadful: we were a throw away society burying our waste out of sight, out of mind. We recycled just five per cent of household waste.
Everybody acknowledges that we need to move away from landfill. Landfills may be better run and regulated than ever before. And we are capturing more methane from landfills and using it to produce energy. But landfills remain a waste of valuable resources.
Landfills emit methane which is a powerful greenhouse gas - over 20 times more potent than CO2. So we must significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to play our part in the fight against climate change.
With cross party support, the previous administration produced the 2003 National Waste Plan that has helped us make progress. The latest figures show that local authorities are now recycling or composting almost 30 per cent.
I pay tribute to those involved in this achievement - the previous administration, local authorities, the private and community sectors and bodies such as Waste Aware Scotland, Remade and the Waste and Resources Action Programme. And of course we could not have made progress with out the commitment of householders the length and breadth of Scotland as well.
But we must do more - to help address climate change, to ensure that waste is treated as a resource and to meet EU targets on reducing the amount of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill not only because it is the right thing to do but to avoid massive EU fines.
We also desperately need more focus on the commercial and industrial sectors that account for most of Scotland's waste.
Progress has continued under the new Government. For example, we are funding trials in Perth and Kinross, East Renfrewshire and elsewhere trials to collect food waste from households for composting. And more councils such as Moray are now looking to introduce the recycling of plastic bottles at recycling centres.
We also held a very successful waste summit, bringing together experts from Scotland and overseas to discuss how to move towards zero waste. Following the summit, and Government's consideration of waste policy, I can outline the broad principles of how we will move towards zero waste in Scotland.
Zero Waste is about the zero misuse of resource and builds on the waste hierarchy of reduce, reuse and recycle. I think we all agree moving towards zero waste is a long journey - but one we must start now.
Waste prevention is key. The previous administration produced an action plan containing work on design and lifespan of products, producer responsibility, food waste, packaging, bags, re-use, unwanted mail, and home and community composting. We will continue work in these areas - and do more.
We will retain the challenging target to stop growth in municipal waste by 2010. And of course, our ambition and focus as individuals and as a nation must be to reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place.
We will consult on a range of potential legislative measures to implement zero waste, including waste prevention measures. For example, we could introduce Site Waste Management Plans, to measure and minimise waste from construction sites. We could follow California where recent legislation requires retailers over a certain size to provide recycling facilities for plastic bags.
Initially, we will continue provide £2.5 million a year, over the next three years, to support community recycling. This will focus on waste prevention and on innovation in recycling and support for social entrepreneurs. This is in addition to our continuing financial support for the Community Recycling Network for Scotland.
Let me be clear. Waste prevention and reducing the amount of waste produced is challenging. It requires changes in behaviour - reducing unnecessary consumption - and for everyone to accept responsibility. Many householders across Scotland are doing their bit, but we need everyone to play a part.
But so too must retailers, who play a key role in areas such as packaging, marketing of products, food waste and specifying the design of products and packaging.
Reducing the unnecessary use of plastic bags is a crucial issue. After Mike Pringle put forward his Member's Bill on plastic bags in the last Parliament, the then Scottish Executive became a party to a voluntary agreement with the retailers to reduce the environmental impact of bags.
The first substantive results are expected at the end of next month. Clearly, the Scottish Government will want to see significant progress. If it isn't forthcoming, then it is likely we will have to take further action.
As well as waste prevention, this Government is committed to substantial expansion of recycling and composting. Recycling has major environmental benefits, including helping to tackle climate change.
The environmental benefits of recycling are shown in a report SEPA are publishing today on the environmental impact of a number of waste management options, including high recycling.
And there are economic opportunities in recycling. At the waste summit, David Dougherty, a recycling adviser from the United States, said that one of the ways to increase recycling rates was to treat recycling as a business. We will encourage this approach.
There are greater job opportunities in collection, in sorting, and in reprocessing - in turning recycled materials into products.
Scotland has companies who are turning recycled glass into bottles and who are recycling wood. We have a growing composting industry. And we have a thriving community recycling sector, who often provide job and training opportunities for disadvantaged people.
In their report published last month, and commissioned by ourselves, The Sustainable Development Commission said Scotland has seen impressive increases in recycling but there is room to set more ambitious targets and the Scottish Government agrees.
We need around 40 per cent recycling/composting by 2010 to meet the first Landfill Directive target.
Across Europe, the most impressive municipal recycling rates being achieved now are 60 per cent to 70 per cent - double Scotland's rate. I am publishing today an analysis by the Government of recycling policies in other countries. Scotland must aspire to be up there with the best.
So today I am proposing recycling/composting targets for municipal waste of a minimum of 50 per cent by 2013 to help us achieve our challenging landfill targets that year; a minimum of 60 per cent recycling by 2020, compared to the existing target of 55 per cent, and a further aspirational target of a minimum of 70 per cent by 2025.
This is challenging. Scotland has rural areas and cities with flats and tenements. It is harder to recycle in blocks of flats but this challenge can be met through the provision of sufficient on-street recycling facilities and advice to householders. We will continue our work, on provision of information and advice to the public on recycling. And we will help develop markets for recycled materials.
For example, we will need to focus on markets for mixed plastics. And this Government will engage further with retailers, on the types of materials they use for their products and packaging, to ensure that more of these materials can be recycled.
As well as waste prevention the Government is committed to substantially expanding recycling and composting. Recycling has major environmental benefits including helping tackle climate change.
We will retain the Scheme for the meantime to ensure a continued focus on landfill reduction. We will, however, agree to an early review of the landfill penalty scheme which we have with Local Government in Scotland. We have discussed this with CoSLA and will bring forward a review of that particular scheme in relation to Local Government landfill targets.
I have outlined our ambitions on recycling. This Government also wishes to be ambitious in relation to reducing the amount of waste that is landfilled. Our aim is to reduce the amount of municipal waste that is landfilled to a maximum of five per cent by 2025.
If we wish to reduce landfill to five per cent by 2025 and increase recycling to 70 per cent over the same period we clearly need a solution for the remaining 25 per cent of municipal waste.
There are several forms of waste treatment such as energy from waste.
I wish to make a number of points clear today. As I have said, this Government's priorities are to reduce the amount of waste that is produced, to encourage re-use and to recycle as much as possible.
We support technologies such as Anaerobic Digestion, which can treat food waste and produce a biogas. There are already some exciting initiatives proposed on energy from bio-gas and this Government fully supports this innovative and effective technology.
We are determined that our approach to waste is also mindful of the wider climate change challenge and energy policies. That is why this Government is opposed to large, inefficient energy from waste plants. Such plants could easily become white elephants and drain public funds. They will require excessive transportation of waste and could also crowd out recycling and waste prevention.
However, energy from waste is used by many countries to move away from landfill. It forms part of their work to obtain value from a resource, rather than just putting waste into landfill.
The Sustainable Development Commission said in its report last month that "energy from waste may be, in the right circumstances, compatible with sustainable development and a move towards a Zero Waste society".
Of the options considered by SEPA, 70 per cent recycling with 25 per cent energy from waste performed the best in relation to climate change and non-renewable resource depletion.
At the Waste Summit, we had a vigorous debate on this issue. A very significant majority thought that energy from waste should have a limited role. And energy from waste is preferable to landfill. Used efficiently, energy from waste can make a contribution to meeting our energy needs, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and heat can be recovered as well.
When considering waste policy, we have taken account of key areas such as the proximity principle, energy policy and climate change. For example, our Wood Fuel Task Force, which has just reported, shows that waste wood can make a useful contribution to energy from biowaste.
We are proposing that by 2025 no more than a quarter of municipal waste, which amounts to less than four per cent of all Scotland's waste, should be treated by energy from waste. This cap of one quarter will include Anaerobic Digestion if it should be used to treat mixed waste.
Indicative allocations to local authorities last year, awarded by the previous administration, envisaged that in some areas, such as the Lothians and Lanarkshire, around 40 per cent of municipal waste would be incinerated.
The Lothians themselves suggested that around 50 per cent of their waste could be incinerated.
The Government rejects that option.
This administration will include our 25 per cent limit for energy from waste technologies in the National Planning Framework, at both a national and a regional level.
We will also lay down conditions to reflect our view that energy from waste plants must deliver a high level of efficiency through combined heat and power or district heating.
To back up this preference, SEPA are strengthening their existing guidelines on thermal treatment of waste so that applicants for environmental permits would be required to show how they intend to achieve the necessary levels of efficiency.
As I mentioned, the previous administration provided indicative allocations to groups of local authorities for residual waste infrastructure, most likely to be energy from waste plants.
We cannot support large energy from waste plants with low efficiency levels which could prove a disincentive to recycling and that require major public funding over a very long period of years. We will not support large amounts of incineration in certain parts of the country.
Therefore we are revoking these indicative allocations: my officials are writing to local authorities accordingly and I will also offer to meet them in due course.
The Scottish Government has a Zero Waste Fund of over £150 million over the next three years. We intend to allocate over £100 million of this Fund to support recycling and composting infrastructure; anaerobic digestion plants treating source segregated organic waste; high efficiency energy from waste plants and other facilities which divert waste from landfill and have high environmental performance.
I will establish a short-life working group with CoSLA to discuss how best to use these resources.
The remainder of the Zero Waste Fund will be used to support work on markets for recycled products, waste education and awareness, community recycling, waste prevention and commercial and industrial waste.
Most of Scotland's waste is commercial and industrial. Unfortunately, the main lever here - Landfill Tax - is for the time being reserved.
The Scottish Government have powers in areas such as bans on sending material from going to landfill, producer responsibility and advice to business on waste prevention, through bodies such as Envirowise. I propose to increase the focus on commercial and industrial waste.
In particular, I will consult on new targets to reduce the amount of commercial waste going to landfill.
This consultation will be part of a review of the National Waste Plan that I am announcing. I have outlined a number of new proposed targets and policies. It is right that these policies and targets be included in a revised Plan. This revised Plan will go through Strategic Environmental Assessment and will be subject to wide-ranging consultation.
We will set up a Zero Waste Think Tank, to bring together, from Scotland and overseas, leading authorities who can advise on the best way of achieving Zero Waste.
I hope Parliamentary colleagues will get involved in the debate on reviewing the National Waste Plan so we can achieve cross party consensus in this long journey.
Finally, effective waste regulation is vital for protecting the environment and human and animal health. Equally, though, we must ensure that waste regulation is proportionate so we do not impose unnecessary burdens on business.
Along with SEPA, I am publishing our response to the Better Waste Regulation consultation carried out last year. This outlines future steps designed to achieve more effective regulation of waste.
In conclusion, this statement outlines a new direction for waste policy in Scotland. At the heart of our policy proposals is a commitment to move Scotland towards zero waste.
A commitment to make Scotland greener.
I commend this statement to Parliament.