Seòmar agus comataidhean

Yes, convener. I have committed to revisiting the numbers in the financial memorandum that the FPAC highlighted to me.

That will need to be developed through the code of practice. I do not intend to impose an approach on councils; I intend to co-develop it with them. However, you are right. There are some really good international examples in that area. For example, the Scandinavian countries—not just within the countries, but across multiple countries—have standardised bin colours and labels so that, whether someone is at a train station, at home or at their place of work, the same colours are used for the same materials. We could aim for that if local authorities are interested in doing so.

No. We are looking at using the super-affirmative procedure for charging for single-use items.

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.

—such as hygiene products and clothing, get into the hands of the people who need them.

I am not concerned about that. Section 50 of the policy memorandum shows that an existing duty of care in legislation already

“requires that waste producers must take all reasonable measures to apply the waste hierarchy when disposing of goods and must also ensure that the waste is managed”.

Businesses already have a duty to do that, but we must ensure, as in all things, that we are making progress and moving forward. Banning the disposal of unsold consumer goods is the next step in that direction, but it is something that many companies are already doing.

Absolutely. The approach would need to be developed in the spirit of the Verity house agreement. We need to develop the processes, systems and intentions at the same time as the funding regimes.

There are, of course, significant opportunities for setting up businesses—especially businesses that are associated with local authorities. I will flag up again Moray Waste Busters, which is an excellent example of a business that is associated with a local authority. It triages the waste that comes in and captures items that could be reused. Not all local authorities have such facilities, but where one has something like that in place, it is not only leasing a bit of land to a business, but that business is removing from the waste stream items that the local authority would otherwise have to pay for.

The issue is not always about supporting local authorities with costs; sometimes it is about supporting local authorities to find opportunities for savings—or even for increased revenue, such as through pre-recycling.

That is the question. There are different approaches to that. Some of it will depend on the built environment. I live in a tenement flat. In such places, we are not going to have room for multiple different boxes. However, in East Lothian, there is an excellent separation scheme, and there is good evidence that separation by the householders works in that type of built environment.