Seòmar agus comataidhean

The only comment that I think pertains to me came from the deputy convener. What he has asked for is not a problem at all.

Absolutely. Just to reiterate, section 8, on the disposal of unsold consumer goods, does not apply to food and perishable goods.

The strategy and the high-level targets absolutely do incorporate food waste, but the specific provision in the bill that the member is alluding to is the one that refers to the reporting of waste and surplus.

Section 17 of the bill would require businesses to report on their waste and surplus. The intention is to use those provisions sector-by-sector, with food waste being the first one that we are considering, because that is such a high priority—as the member rightly pointed out. I would like construction to be the second sector that we look at, for exactly the reasons that the deputy convener mentioned.

The requirement is for businesses to publicly report on the waste and surplus of food; again, that is looking at large businesses. Several large businesses already do reporting of that kind voluntarily, including Tesco, Hovis, IKEA and Unilever, so there are already good models of what that looks like in the voluntary space. About 300 UK businesses already do voluntary reporting and about 60 of those operate in Scotland. It is about taking that good practice and spreading it across industry so that all large food-related industry businesses have to do such reporting.

The intention is not to put any targets into the bill. I have the section on targets in front of me, and it uses the phrase “consumption of materials”. It says:

“In considering the imposition of targets ... the Scottish ministers must have regard to”

the fact that the

“processes for the production and distribution of things”

and

“the delivery of services”

are designed

“so as to reduce the consumption of materials”

and so on. The targets that we set must be about the consumption of materials.

We are in agreement about the kinds of targets that we want to set; the discussion is about what those targets are and where they are captured. As I set out earlier, developing those targets will be a process, because there is no consensus on methodologies or data sets yet. That information is just not available, so work needs to be done to decide what the targets would be, how they would be effective and fit within our devolved powers and how we would measure and report on them.

The member is right that there is an urgency in relation to the pace. Of course, because of the Verity house agreement, I am not comfortable with imposing things on local councils in primary legislation without going through that process. The member is right to identify the code of practice as the route for that.

We have the Zero Waste Scotland facilitation of best practice and knowledge sharing, but the route to implementing it would be the mandatory code of practice that the bill proposes. We are proposing to develop that code of practice with local authorities. There would then be targets associated with that, which would not come into play until 2030. I understand if the member feels that that is quite a lengthy time period. During that time, our councils can invest in infrastructure and build new facilities. We would need to do a lot of work before we were in a position to impose targets on councils. I am confident that we have the route to get to where we need to go, but there is a lot of work that we need to do with councils and a lot of investment that we need to make collectively to make sure that that can happen.

That is an interesting provision in the bill. If the convener will allow me, it is worth my going into that in some detail, as it is an important point. I have the letter from COSLA in front of me. Councillor Gail Macgregor says:

“There is no need to make the Charter for kerbside collection services mandatory. All 32 Councils have signed up to it.”

However, only a third of the councils actually implement the charter. That is the problem with a voluntary charter: there are no consequences for not implementing it. You can sign on the dotted line and then not do it.

The bill proposes a move to a mandatory code of practice to be developed by councils so that we know that it is feasible and that it provides for different geographies, tenancy types, building types and built environments. It needs to have all those provisions, and it needs to take into account where councils currently are. As we know, some councils are very nearly at their 60 per cent target and some are a long way away from it.

Given all the development that needs to be done, the bill proposes a mandatory target. The reason for that is evidence based—it is because that is what works elsewhere. We have international examples of that. Wales is, of course, our closest example. That is how Wales has driven recycling to the levels that they are at there.

In Scotland, recycling levels have stalled at just over 40 per cent on average—between 40 and 45 per cent. We have stalled, so we have to do something new. We have to bring in what works. The Verity house agreement commits to co-design, but it also commits to being evidence led, and the evidence tells us that we need to do this.

I do not have the data on that but, if the information is with SEPA, I presume that we can write to the committee with it.

My reassurance is that we will follow the Verity house process and do the co-design together. It is not entirely a question of imposing things on local authorities and expecting them to get on with it. Together, we need to understand what local authorities want to achieve and how best to achieve that. As I highlighted earlier, it is not just about what we want local authorities to do for us in the waste space; it is about the opportunities that we can help them to unlock so that they get better value from their recyclate and get income streams to reduce the costs that are associated with litter and handling waste. Monica Lennon made a good point on reusable nappies, for example. By taking items out of the waste stream, we save local authorities money.

Douglas Lumsden will understand that there are lots of different moving parts. There are different scopes for savings and different revenue-raising opportunities. Of course, a big thing that will be coming into play is the extended producer responsibility for packaging. That will result in substantial funding for councils, but we do not have the details yet. All those resources can go into the mix, alongside developing an approach that ensures that we will be successful.

There is a really good example of that. One of the things that we considered in the consultation was whether to apply those regulations to food, but we decided not to do that because food businesses are already doing quite a lot in that space, so we felt that legislation would not be necessary.

You are absolutely right that it looks as if regulation might be necessary here. It is estimated that about £22 million-worth of items that would be covered by that provision are destroyed by landfill and incineration in Scotland each year. That is £22 million-worth of perfectly usable items that are going not to the needy or to people who could use them, but straight to landfill or incineration, both of which produce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.

We need to address that by developing the regulations and through consultation. We also have the French model. I am sure that we all want to achieve that; nobody wants perfectly usable goods to end up on the bonfire. Having that provision in the bill is an important step.

As for Mark Ruskell’s question about specific examples, I do not have any specific examples with me. Officials may have some, or we could write to you about that.

I am happy to go into that. I listed all the elements of the bill that could relate to reuse in answer to Ben Macpherson’s earlier question, so I will not take up the member’s time by going through that again. The bill contains substantial provisions throughout to increase reuse, specifically those in section 6(3). The regulations that can be created under section 6(1) may set targets for one or more of the following:

“reducing the consumption of materials, ... increasing reuse, ... increasing recycling, ... reducing waste”.

That is what is in the bill. We can set targets around increasing reuse and around the consumption of materials.

The nitty-gritty is what those targets would be and who they would apply to, whether it be local authorities, businesses and certain other sectors. We need to do some work to understand exactly how those targets would apply.

I am sure that everyone in this room agrees that sectors, businesses and local authorities would need to understand and be involved in developing those targets. We need to do that work together. Realistically, we are likely to be looking at a suite of targets, because things will be different for businesses as compared with local authorities, for example.

I am really pleased by that question because that has been on my mind, too. There are six provisions in the bill that look directly at moving up the hierarchy of reuse, and the bill is just one part of the larger strategic framework that will be described in the route map that I know you are all very keen to see, and which will shortly be published in draft form as part of the extended producer responsibility scheme.

There are six provisions that are directly related to reuse and they start at the beginning with strategy and targets. I have the bill in front of me and note that it specifically says that a circular economy is one in which

“the production and distribution of things are designed so as to reduce the consumption of materials”.

Reducing consumption of materials is the fundamental driver for the strategy and for the national targets. Setting out that strategy and looking at the high-level consumption of materials means implementing the waste hierarchy, which puts reuse near the top—less consumption, then reuse, then recycling and so on. That hierarchy would be embedded in the strategy. That is the overall principle.

The next provision that relates to reuse is the placing of restrictions on the disposal of unsold consumer goods. We have seen other countries put that in place. For example, in France, there is a ban on companies destroying clothes, cosmetics, hygiene products and electrical items. That would apply to both sold and unsold items. Some items are not even getting used at the moment and, in many cases, are going directly to landfill or incineration, so that provision would ensure that those items would be used in the first place, rather than being wasted.

The next provision that relates to reuse is on charges on single-use items. We have all seen how effective the charge on single-use plastic bags or bags in shops has been in driving the reuse of bags. We probably all have cupboards full of reusable bags that we take to the shops, or we keep them in the boots of our cars. That charge has driven reuse, which is the purpose of single-use charges. We intend to implement the first single-use charge on reusable coffee cups specifically to drive reuse by encouraging people to use reusable cups rather than disposable ones.

The next provision of the bill that we can use to drive things up the waste hierarchy is the code of practice. As I have said, that will be developed with councils under the Verity house agreement. I know from the committee’s earlier evidence session that councils are interested in looking at how they can improve reuse, and there are already some excellent examples of that within our councils.

The next provision that relates to that is the one on reporting waste and surplus. That provision was initially intended to cover food, but the reporting of waste and surplus in construction is a high priority for me. The public reporting of waste and surplus does two things. First, it makes the businesses that use those materials aware of what they are wasting and that it is not good for their bottom line, and it also makes them aware of the surpluses that they might have that might be of use to other people. Making records of those materials publicly available also means that other organisations and businesses can look at them, see that they are identified and then reuse them. As the member rightly highlighted, the construction industry is a key one in this case. When people dismantle or repair buildings, they can generate a lot of potentially reusable material, and it needs to be reported on so that people know that it is there and they can use it.