Scottish Government to push for higher recycling targets

There are greater job opportunities in collection, in sorting, and in reprocessing – in turning recycled materials into products.

 
Richard Lochhead

In the first major policy statement on waste since the Scottish Nationalist Party won a slim majority in the Scottish Parliament in May 2007, Scotland's environment secretary Richard Lochhead said he would consult on the “tough” new targets.

Building on an election manifesto pledge to move towards a “zero waste society”, Mr Lochhead revealed that his administration wants no more than a quarter of Scotland's municipal waste to be used to generate energy.

And, he ruled out allowing “large, inefficient incinerators” to be developed.

A three-year “Zero Waste Fund” is to be set up to drive forward waste prevention, recycling and composting, while local authority plans to develop major incineration projects could be rejected by the Scottish Government.

Pointing out that most waste in Scotland comes from the commercial and industrial sector, Mr Lochhead also said he would consult on new targets for non-municipal waste.

“Zero misuse”

In a statement to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh yesterday afternoon, he said: “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.”

The Scottish cabinet secretary told fellow MSPs that waste prevention would be “key” to his administration's work, continuing the previous Labour-led administration's work on product design, producer responsibility, food waste, packaging, junk mail and home composting.

He said more work would be undertaken with retailers with the aim of bringing municipal waste growth to a halt by 2010.

Overall, the plan outlined by Mr Lochhead aims to reduce landfill rates in Scotland to “a maximum of 5% by 2025”.

Recycling

Mr Lochhead explained his government's decision to focus on recycling for such a large proportion of Scotland's waste, citing the environmental benefits of recycling declared by both SEPA and the recent Sustainable Development Commission Scotland report. He also pointed to the economic opportunities in recycling including that “there are greater job opportunities in collection, in sorting, and in reprocessing – in turning recycled materials into products”.

Discussing the “aspirational” target of recycling 70% of Scotland's municipal waste, the environment secretary acknowledged that it would be “challenging” to encourage recycling in blocks of flats – suggesting on-street recycling facilities to be the answer – and noted the importance of developing markets for recycled materials.

He also pointed to the value of community recycling schemes with the announcement of a £7.5 million three-year fund for the community recycling sector.

In particular, he warned of the need to focus on markets for mixed plastics, promising: “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.”

EfW

The SNP plan sets a 25% cap on the use of energy-from-waste to treat municipal waste, and Mr Lochhead said this cap would include anaerobic digestion “if it should be used to treat mixed waste”.

He said the Scottish Government was opposed to “large, inefficient energy-from-waste plants” for climate change reasons, adding that: “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.”

The Scottish environment secretary said the Scottish Government “rejects” plans by councils in the Lothian region and Lanarkshire to incinerate up to 50% of household waste.

However, he defended the use of small, efficient plants, revealing that he was writing to local authorities and guidance from SEPA would reflect this desire.

He said: “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.”

• SEPA has published its response to the consultation it ran last year on its plan to cut red tape in the waste management sector, Better Waste Regulation. The response can be found through this link.