- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to help facilitate joint discussions between local authorities and industry regarding recycling and materials recovery.
Answer
Scottish Government and Zero Waste Scotland have ongoing engagement with local authorities, individually and collectively, as well as with private companies & industry associations. For example, our Waste Sector Forum, which meets monthly, includes representatives from COSLA, the local authority waste management officers network, SEPA, and waste sector and third sector trade bodies. Other examples of engagement include:
- A workshop on addressing contamination of recyclate.
- Provision of an online platform to match availability and demand for resource during the early stages of the Covid pandemic across local authorities and private companies.
- Workshops to gather input from local authorities and material recovery facility operators to support the review of the Household Recycling Charter Code of Practice.
- Support to local authorities and private companies to adapt recycling facilities to allow operation whilst meeting Covid restrictions.
- Support for local authority collaborative procurement of a glass reprocessing contract.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-01877 by Michael Matheson on 20 August 2021, whether it will provide a breakdown of what proportion of household plastic waste has been recycled in Scotland in each year since 2014.
Answer
This information is publically available through the SEPA Waste Discover Data Tool: https://informatics.sepa.org.uk/WasteAllSources/
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of any improvements identified in capturing commercial and industrial waste data since 2016.
Answer
In 2016, SEPA developed and implemented an automated tool to capture and summarise commercial and industrial waste data from data returns. This automation reduces errors and allows revision of historical data to account for resubmissions of data more easily.
We are working with SEPA and other governments and regulators in the UK to develop and implement an electronic waste tracking system. This will provide a step change in the quality and timeliness of waste data. A joint consultation on the implementation of a mandatory electronic waste tracking system is planned for autumn on behalf of all four nations of the UK.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its progress towards the 2025 food waste reduction target, including a tonnage breakdown for food waste (a) arisings, (b) incinerated/landfilled and (c) prevented and, if it is not possible to provide such figures, by what date the data will be available.
Answer
A full update on progress towards our target of a 33% reduction in food waste by 2025 will be provided in the upcoming review of Scotland’s Food Waste Reduction Action Plan. A detailed analysis on the composition of residual waste is currently being undertaken and will form part of this review, due in Spring 2022.
In addition, we are developing a Routemap to deliver our ambitious 2025 waste and recycling targets which will inform the development of the new Circular Economy Bill. There will also be further engagement and consultation to shape the Bill’s contents.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on food waste prevention and reduction programmes since 2013.
Answer
Since 2016 - which is when a specific food waste support programme came in - up to April 2021, approx. £1.23 million has been spent.
Table 1 also provides a breakdown of Scottish Government’s advertising spend targeted at food waste prevention and reduction since 2013.
Table 1. Scottish Government food waste advertising spend |
Year | Campaign | Advertising spend |
2013-14 | Eat In Season | £79,903.03 |
2013-14 | Food Waste | £573,102.70 |
2014-15 | Food Provenance | £80,049.11 |
2015-16 | Greener Scotland | £53,042.18 |
2016-17 | Greener Scotland | £103,742.55 |
2017-18 | Greener Scotland | £88,893.75 |
2018-19 | Greener Scotland | £217,737.81 |
2018-19 | Food waste | £303,516.65 |
2019-2020 | Food waste | £53,042.18 |
TOTAL | | £1,553,029.96 |
A breakdown of Zero Waste Scotland’s spend on advertising and outreach activities to promote food waste reduction for 2019-20 and during 2020-21 (to date) and the outcomes of these are set out in Table 2. This forms part of the overall approx. £1.23 million spend mentioned above.
Table 2. Zero Waste Scotland advertising spend and outcomes |
Year | Advertising spend | Outreach spend | Pieces of PR coverage | Increase in social media following | Training delivered on 'Love Food Hate Waste' |
2019-20 | £193,000 | £76,000 | 437 | 17,000 | 1269 individuals |
2020-21 (to date) | £105,000 | £20,000 | 137 | 13,000 | 166 individuals |
TOTAL | £298,000 | £96,000 | | | |
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-32196 by Roseanna Cunningham on 30 September 2020, whether it will provide updated figures on Zero Waste Scotland audits for 2019-20, regarding (a) reductions in (i) food waste and (ii) CO2 emissions and (b) monetary savings.
Answer
2019/2020 identified savings were as follows:
Year | Food waste reduction (tonnes) | Food waste CO2 | Food waste cost | Food: raw material (tonnes) | Food: raw material CO2 | Food: raw material cost |
2019-20 | 968 | 2944tCO2e | £228,516 | 636 | 1547tCO2e | £259,446 |
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi McAllan on 9 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-32506 by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020, whether it will provide updated figures to include spend during 2020-21.
Answer
Zero Waste Scotland have spent the following amount of money on tackling litter from 2015 to 2021:
Year | Spend on tackling litter |
2020-21 | £283,807 |
2019-20 | £92,397 |
2018-19 | £119,081 |
2017-18 | £379,465 |
2016-17 | £480,786 |
2015-16 | £658,647 |
Additional funding was given to Zero Waste Scotland in 2015-16 to 2017-18 for specific projects, such as funding Keep Scotland Beautiful’s Clean Up Scotland Campaign and development of the Litter Monitoring System.
The Scottish Government and Crown Estates Scotland have funded Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB), for their "Upstream Battle" marine litter campaign. The details are as follows:
| | Financial Year | Funding |
Scottish Government | 2018-2019 | £30,000 |
Crown Estates Scotland | 2018-2019 | £25,000 |
Crown Estates Scotland | 2020-2021 | £20,000 |
The Scottish Government does not separately account for staff time dedicated to work on tackling litter.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 8 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how far it has progressed on the development of an electronic system for (a) hazardous waste and (b) transfrontier shipment of waste, and what the cost has been of (i) each project and (ii) the staff hours dedicated to each project.
Answer
The development of an electronic system for hazardous waste is being taken forward through a multi-agency project which proposes to implement a mandatory electronic waste tracking system. We plan on consulting on these proposals in the Autumn. Accurate costs and staffing hours for this multi-agency project are not held centrally.
The transfrontier shipment of waste is a reserved matter. We will work with Defra to consider any changes to improve data collection on transfrontier shipment of waste.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 8 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government which local authorities have (a) signed up to and (b) successfully met the Household Recycling Charter code of practice.
Answer
Of the 32 local authorities across Scotland, 31 have signed up to the voluntary Household Recycling Charter, Edinburgh City Council has not yet signed up. So far, 9 councils have fully aligned their services with the Code of Practice, these are: Dumfries & Galloway, Dundee City, East Ayrshire, Falkirk, Fife, Moray, Shetland Islands, South Ayrshire, and Stirling.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 8 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a (a) timeline of the work that (i) it and (ii) partner agencies have undertaken on the edoc waste monitoring system referenced in the strategy, Making Things Last: a circular economy strategy for Scotland, and (b) breakdown of the costs of this work, including (A) staff time and (B) costs from partner agencies.
Answer
The Electronic Duty of Care (edoc) system has been operational since January 2014 and was the result of a 4 year, multi-agency project. These project costs are not held centrally. The project was funded through the EU’s LIFE+ environment programme and led by the Environment Agency.
We are taking forward the commitment to move towards the use of a mandatory system for waste monitoring as part of our work to implement an electronic waste tracking system, set out in our update to the Climate Change Plan.
A joint consultation on the implementation of a mandatory electronic waste tracking system is planned for autumn on behalf of all four nations of the UK. This consultation will seek views on how and when mandatory electronic waste tracking should be implemented, including the types of waste that should be included. Accurate costs and staffing hours for this multi-agency project are not held centrally.
