Recycling must not be main thrust of Scottish waste policy

It has emerged that last week's waste summit in Edinburgh saw local authorities telling ministers that pushing for more and more recycling, rather than looking at preventing waste being produced in the first place, could see “perverse” environmental outcomes.

Even before the summit took place in Edinburgh on Wednesday (see letsrecycle.com story), cabinet secretary Richard Lochhead was warned that recycling targets could prove a distraction from the “real goal” of producing less waste.

Aberdeenshire council wrote to the SNP administration to state: “Recycling is important – and far preferable to landfill – but it must not be the main thrust of waste policy.”

The chairman of Aberdeenshire's infrastructure services, Cllr Martin Ford identified the elimination of excess packaging as one key area in which the Scottish Government should focus its efforts. “Addressing this through enforceable regulation needs to be part of a serious drive for waste minimisation,” he said.

COSLA

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) said today that the waste summit with the Scottish Government – called to take forward the SNP's manifesto pledge from the May elections to work towards “zero waste” – had been “very useful”.

The organisation praised both Mr Lochhead and environment minister Michael Russell for listening carefully to what councils including Aberdeenshire had said.

Councillor Alison Hay, who is COSLA's spokeswoman on sustainable development, said that local authorities were hoping for a more “outcome-lead approach” from the Scottish Government than targets.

She agreed that waste prevention should be a “top priority”.

“Targets are never a good way of doing things as everybody loses sight of the bigger picture,” she said. Referring to Scottish ministers, she added: “I am hoping they will take on board the issues raised. Whether we like it or not we have got targets to meet so we have to do something.”

Aberdeenshire

Aberdeenshire council has provided 14,000 subsidised green cones and compost bins to get householders to cut the amount of waste they throw out, but Cllr Ford said this work is not recognised under the current recycling targets.

He told Scottish ministers that a focus on just recycling would create “perverse incentives” rewarding recycling more than waste minimisation, despite being further down the waste hierarchy.

Cllr Ford explained: “We have, for the first time in many years, been able to show a reversal in the trend of annual increases in waste arisings but this is currently not recognised as a factor. I acknowledge that measuring the quantity of something we don't have is problematic, but home composting is real and environmentally friendly and targets/policies need to encourage rather than ignore it.”

Government

Responding to Aberdeenshire's letter, a spokesman for the Scottish Government said that increased recycling targets were still likely to be a “key consideration” for the administration in Holyrood.

However, he pointed out that ministers were still in the process of developing their waste policy, based in part on input from councils and other stakeholders.

He explained: “Scotland's waste policy will be mapped out as a result of some of the comments we have received and we will make announcements in due course. Our position on recycling and waste minimisation will become clear then.”