Legislation bringing in the ban will be brought before parliament later this year, which “will make clear that the Scottish Government does not support the development of further municipal waste incineration capacity”.
In the meantime, an order for local authorities to alert the Scottish ministers of any planning permission applications for EfW plants has been extended.
Ms Slater said: “We need to make sure we manage unavoidable and unrecyclable waste in the short term. By putting in place sensible measures to limit and gradually reduce Scotland’s incineration capacity, we can make sure we can manage our waste today, while ensuring our future waste infrastructure aligns with our climate targets.
“I look forward to working with local authorities and industry to take forward these recommendations.”
Review
Former CIWM chief executive Dr Church completed his six month review into incineration in Scotland last month.
Alongside the ban on new plants, other recommendations called on the government to set out an indicative cap that declines over time for the amount of residual waste treatment needed as Scotland “transitions towards a fully circular economy”.
Dr Church had been asked by the minister to undertake the “independent review”, to prioritise the assessment of national capacity requirements.
‘Phasing out’
The move was welcomed by the campaign group UKWIN’s national coordinator, Shlomo Dowen, who said: “Today’s announcement of a moratorium on new incinerators in Scotland is an important first step towards a viable ‘incineration exit strategy’.
“Whilst we celebrate today’s decision we call upon the Scottish Government to take the next steps towards a strategically-planned progressive phasing out of incineration. Such a move would support Scotland’s transition to a more circular, and genuinely lower carbon, economy”.
According to the Scottish government, there are six operational municipal waste EfW plants in the country.
Two of these are owned by Viridor in Dunbar and Glasgow, while the others are operated by FCC, Levenseat, MVV and Shetland council.
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