"We also need to establish additional waste treatment facilities to meet European Landfill Directive targets. We have concluded that 1,140,000 tonnes of capacity will be required by 2020, which will cost the Executive £48 million a year at current prices"
Ross Finnie, Environment Minister
The Scottish Executive has provisionally announced today, funding to double Scotland's current recycling rate and reduce reliance on landfill through an attack on residual wastes.
The money will allow treatment of just over one million tonnes of residual waste by 2020 and will cost the Executive £48 million per year at current prices.
Residual waste is the fraction of waste left once all efforts have been taken to reduce, recycle or compost.
The first tranche of funding, pending final Ministerial approval, will go to the group of City of Edinburgh, Midlothian, West Lothian, East Lothian and Scottish Borders Councils and to North and South Lanarkshire Councils.
The Edinburgh, Lothians and Borders Group will receive £12.6 million a year to treat 300,000 tonnes of residual waste. North and South Lanarkshire Councils will receive £8.4 million a year for treating 200,000 tonnes of residual waste.
Joint working seems to be the way forward giving economies of scale and other advantages and other groups of local authorities are working jointly to develop more detailed proposals for residual waste treatment in order to reach the necessary economies of scale for value for money to be achieved.
Scottish Strategic Waste Fund (SWF)
The current provisional funding announcement represents the second phase of the Strategic Waste Funding in Scotland. The SWF was established to support Scottish local authorities to meet the targets outlined in the National Waste Plan Scotland (NWP).
In addition to a commitment to meet the EU Landfill Directive targets, the National Waste Plan aims to achieve the municipal solid waste (MSW) recycling and composting targets listed below:
- 25% of MSW recycled or composted by 2006;
- 30% of MSW recycled or composted by 2008 (this target was not originally in the NWP, but was added by the last Spending Review) ; and
- 55% of MSW recycled or composted by 2020.
The earlier first phase of the funding concentrated on support for the provision and enhancement of segregated kerbside recycling collection systems, as well as the introduction of new and upgraded recycling centres and points.
Phase 2 of the SWF focuses on the need to treat residual wastes and hence divert them from landfill.
Scottish recycling performance
For the 12 month period April 2005 to March 2006, Scotland recycled/composted 24.4 per cent of its municipal waste. By 2020, the Executive says that this percentage will need to increase to 55 per cent, with 50 per cent of recyclate being derived from either kerbside collections or recycling centres and five per cent coming from recyclate from waste treatment facilities.
Data showing local authority recycling performance can be found on the Scottish
Environmental Protection Agency’s web site.
Waste reduction remains high on the Scottish Executive's agenda, and they remain committed to reducing the waste produced by both households and businesses, as outlined in the Household Waste Prevention Action Plan and the Business Waste Framework.
Scotland landfills approximately 1.5 million tonnes of biodegradable municipal waste per annum, but has to limit the amount of biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) sent to landfill as follows:
- 1.32 million tonnes of BMW in 2010
- 0.88 million tonnes of BMW in 2013; and
- 0.62 million tonnes of BMW in 2020
Strategic Outline Cases (SOCs) have been submitted by six local authority Strategic Option Review Groups (SORGs). These been published on the Scottish Executive's website, with certain commercially sensitive information removed. More detailed Outline Business Cases (OBCs) will be published by the Executive in due course.
Comments from Ross Finnie
Environment Minister Ross Finnie said:
"Scotland now recycles or composts almost 25 per cent of its waste. We are currently working with councils and others to find ways of improving recycling and composting services. We are also looking at innovative ways to prevent waste in the first place. We remain committed to achieving recycling or composting 30 per cent of municipal waste by 2008 and 55 per cent by 2020.
"We also need to establish additional waste treatment facilities to meet European Landfill Directive targets. We have concluded that 1,140,000 tonnes of capacity will be required by 2020, which will cost the Executive £48 million a year at current prices.
"We need to learn to live within our environmental means and reduce our reliance on landfill. In assessing bids for funding under the Strategic Waste Fund, we will scrutinise very closely the proposals that come forward from groups of local authorities to ensure they meet the stringent requirements of the National Waste Plan."