Recycling in Fife
We now come to the members' business debate, which is on motion S1M-1684, in the name of Iain Smith, on recycling in Fife. Members who are not waiting for the debate should please leave quickly and quietly so that we can proceed.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes with disappointment that, according to the Accounts Commission Performance Indicators for 1999-2000 for the percentage of domestic waste recycled, Fife Council has fallen from 4th in 1996-97, when it inherited the award-winning record of the former North East Fife District Council, to bottom of the league in 1999-2000 at 1.6% and urges Fife Council to develop a strategy to increase recycling and meet its obligations under the European Landfill Directive.
I thank the Parliamentary Bureau for giving us the opportunity to debate the motion. I thank the members who supported it and those who have stayed to participate in the debate. I also welcome the minister to her new responsibilities.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Is it within your power to impose an informal suspension of perhaps one to two minutes at the end of decision time so that the chamber can be properly cleared? That would allow members who are promoting their own business to do so in an atmosphere of calm and without this constant hubbub. It is not fair to Mr Smith or to anyone else who is interested in the debate.
The answer to your question is yes, it would be possible. Patricia Ferguson yesterday pointed out to me that there had again been a great hubbub at the start of members' business. There is no reason why members cannot leave quickly and quietly—which is the phrase I use—but they insist on having conversations. I do not want to suspend the meeting because that simply delays everyone. Start again by all means, Mr Smith.
I will not repeat what I have already said but, before anyone else says it, I will state that I will be talking rubbish.
I used to be proud of the part of the country where I live because it took rubbish seriously. Before the reorganisation of local government, North East Fife District Council was in the vanguard of recycling in Scotland. For more than a decade, under the control of the Liberal Democrats, improving the environment was a priority. We had rubbish-free zones and cleaner beaches. We removed chlorofluorocarbons from redundant fridges. We encouraged, promoted and supported recycling. Door-to-door waste paper collections were carried out across the whole of rural north-east Fife. Civic amenity sites were situated throughout the district, from the smallest hamlets to the largest towns. They offered bottle banks, can banks, plastic bottle recycling and textile recycling. Other schemes were under development for recycling batteries and waste oils. There was also an experimental composting scheme, again with door-to-door collection.
Sadly, much of that work—and the considerable good will and active support of the public—was lost on reorganisation when responsibility was transferred to Fife Council. Even before Fife Council took over, it showed its commitment to the environment by refusing to allow North East Fife District Council to complete the purchase and development of a major civic amenity site and recycling centre for the biggest town in the district, St Andrews. When it took over in 1996, Fife Council abandoned the scheme altogether, even though the district council had transferred the money that had been earmarked for the scheme to the new council.
Fife Council subsequently scrapped the waste paper collection and composting schemes. For purely commercial reasons, it introduced large wheelie bins across Fife with no consideration of the wider environmental implications. I was a councillor at the time—perhaps I should have declared an interest—and I warned the council that, by introducing large wheelie bins, it would not promote recycling and waste minimisation, but just encourage people to chuck stuff in the bins. That is exactly what happened and the warning seemed all the more apt when the waste paper and composting services were withdrawn. I see that Bruce Crawford is looking a bit sceptical, but that is what happened.
I will finish this point and then Bruce can come back if he wants.
I am not sure whether Fife Council called on the expertise of the press in raking through bins but, in a recent analysis of the contents of wheelie bins, it found that the typical contents were more than a third paper and card, more than a third putrescible organics—I apologise if I have not pronounced that correctly—and about 25 per cent glass, plastics and metals. In other words, less than 10 per cent of the waste in a Fife wheelie bin could not be recycled.
Fife Council, for purely economic reasons, developed a waste collection strategy that took no account of waste management, waste minimisation or waste disposal. The predictable result is that Fife has gone from fourth position in the recycling league in 1996 to bottom in 2000. A massive 98.4 per cent of all household waste ends up in holes in the ground.
I recognise that Fife Council has now made a small start to recover the situation. It is considering experimental composting schemes and door-to-door waste paper collections in some areas. At least it is recycling some things, but that is a very small step, which goes hardly any way towards restoring previous levels, let alone meeting the requirements of the European landfill directive.
The problem is not unique to Fife. In the past five years, Scotland's recycling record has gone from bad to worse. The European landfill directive requires Scotland to reduce the proportion of waste that is sent to landfill sites by a quarter by 2006—not by a quarter of the current levels, but by a quarter of the baseline levels of 1995 for biodegradable waste. We have gone backwards, which means that, to reach the targets, we have more to do and further to go than we had in 1995-96.
In other countries, households have more than one bin at their disposal so that they can separate their rubbish in an environmentally conscious way. When we consider the record of other countries, our record becomes all the more embarrassing. The amount of waste that is recycled in Switzerland is 52 per cent. In the Netherlands and Austria, the figure is 45 per cent. In Scotland, it is 7 per cent. That is a national disgrace. In Canberra in Australia, people have succeeded in increasing the amount that they recycle from 8 per cent in 1995—our base position—to 57 per cent this year. The message is therefore clear: progress is possible.
We can surely learn from best practices that have been established in Scotland, in other parts of the UK and abroad. Why is so little glass recycled? Happily, the ancient tradition of getting 20p back—or 3d for people as old I am—for returning an Irn Bru bottle is still with us, but why do we not do more of that? Even the United States, the international pariah on environmental issues, has developed a bottle deposit scheme that extends beyond glass bottles to aluminium and other waste materials.
Clearly, the Executive could take a lead. An opportunity is there to be seized and, as an outward-looking nation, we should be learning from other countries, particularly those in the European Union, which, after all, will have to comply with the same landfill directive.
The Scottish Executive could also improve matters by publishing and enforcing targets for recycling. The partnership for government commits the partnership Executive to setting targets for recycling in the public and private sectors and to promoting waste management strategies. The national waste management strategy has made progress. The requirement to develop area waste management plans under that strategy has at least forced councils such as Fife Council to take the issue seriously. However, I would welcome news from the minister on the progress that has been made to meet the European Union directive requirements. I hope that he will say how the Executive can ensure that there is a healthy market for recycled products. I believe that it could do so by leading by example and instructing the Scottish Executive secretariat to buy more recycled products.
Great strides forward could be taken on this issue. We have done it before. Through a combination of local initiatives, North East Fife District Council led the way in Scotland. Fife Council must resurrect more of those policies and go even further. I am confident that, with the environment now under the responsibility of a Liberal Democrat minister, we will begin to see progress on this and other environmental issues.
I welcome the opportunity to hold this debate and look forward to the reply from the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development.
At this point, five members have asked to speak, so speeches must be a maximum of four minutes, please. I call Scott Barrie, to be followed by Bruce Crawford.
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I did not realise that I would be called so early in the debate.
I welcome the debate, but I must take issue with a number of Iain Smith's comments. He said that unfortunately his constituents in North-East Fife seem to think that the provision of wheelie bins means that they have no environmental responsibility. Those of us who have lived in the west of Fife for a considerable time are used to wheelie bins and taking collections to bottle banks. In fact, I am sometimes embarrassed by the number of bottles that I deposit in the bottle bank in Pittencrieff park, known locally as the Glen, in Dunfermline. That might say something about my drinking habits; I am not sure. I hope that my newspaper collections are kept separate from my wheelie bin.
Mr Barrie may not be aware that the figures that I cited on the contents of wheelie bins were from a study of wheelie bins in the west of Fife.
That is a point worth making, but I thought that Iain Smith's argument was that the poor people of North-East Fife did not know how to use their wheelie bins when those bins were introduced. I am sorry if I misunderstood what he said.
That little aside was said in no way to denigrate the important role that recycling should play. I am well aware of the statistic that Fife Council has fallen to the bottom of the recycling league. In fact, Councillor Drew Edward, the secretary to the Labour group, and I had a discussion about this issue late last year. I was appalled by what he told me, but I was slightly heartened by some of the action that Fife Council is taking.
As Mr Smith will know, the national waste strategy for Scotland, produced by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and endorsed by the Scottish Executive, identifies Fife as one of the 11 waste strategy areas in Scotland. Between now and the autumn, the councils in each area will be working with their key partners to produce waste area plans, which will identify local solutions to waste management problems, where appropriate, and provide a link to the management of the national waste strategy. That might be a small beginning, but it shows that Fife Council is aware of its environmental responsibilities and is trying to do something about them.
Mr Smith is being a bit disingenuous by giving the impression that the North East Fife District Council area was some sort of environmental nirvana before local government reorganisation. I point out to him that Kirkcaldy District Council and Dunfermline District Council, in conjunction with North East Fife District Council, won a national award for the kingdom compost initiative—the initiative was not solely down to North East Fife District Council.
I understand that one of the reasons why Fife Council has fallen so low in the national tables is that there were no markets for recycled glass and paper. Mr Smith mentioned economics a number of times. The fact is that the council has a duty to provide value for money and cannot simply do things because they happen to be environmentally good, desirable though they may be; it has to take into account the cost.
We are having a debate to criticise—perhaps rightly—Fife's recycling initiative. If the practices of the three former district councils had continued, we could easily have debated why value for money was not sought. The issue is not as straightforward as saying that the council is not doing enough. It is perhaps unfortunate that the council has fallen down the national table. It was unfortunate that the contracts were negotiated at a time that coincided with local government reorganisation. However, as I said, the council is aware of the issue and is taking steps to deal with it. I hope that it will improve its environmental record.
I congratulate Iain Smith on initiating the debate, although when I first heard about it, I thought that it might involve a policy for recycling Liberal business managers.
My constituency covers Fife, and I am the shadow environment minister, so I know the value of thinking globally but acting locally. It is fair to say that Fife's Labour council has not always thought of or acted in the best interests of the people. That is especially true for recycling. I hear what Scott Barrie says about improvements that have been undertaken, which are to be applauded. To be fair to Iain Smith, the north-east Fife Liberals did quite a good job of putting together the recycling packages there. It would be interesting to look furth of Fife and see the picture elsewhere.
It is right to say that the European Community's new directive on the landfill of waste will impact on our local councils. As a former council leader, I know how difficult it is for councils to balance the increasing pressures to invest in new waste management systems with the increasing landfill taxes that do not allow them the freedom to do that. The Accounts Commission report—Iain Smith is reading it right now—shows that SNP councils perform better than most, even in difficult circumstances.
In my years at Perth and Kinross District Council, we invested quite heavily in recycling. Perth and Kinross has wheelie bins, but it also has the best recycling record in Scotland. Therefore, recycling is less to do with wheelie bins, and more to do with the mechanisms that are in put in place behind them to support recycling. SNP-run Angus Council has also increased its recycling capacity year in, year out, as has Clackmannanshire Council. The only SNP council that is going the other way is Falkirk Council, but we have been in control there for only a few weeks. I am sure that that situation will be reversed in the coming years.
Reducing dependency on landfill has been one of the SNP's political priorities for many years. Our 1999 local government manifesto committed us to prioritising a reduction in the use of landfill sites and to adopting alternative strategies to deal with waste.
SEPA's national waste strategy has been introduced. It sets out a framework to shift fundamentally the way in which Scotland's waste is managed. I am glad that the new minister is listening to the debate. I say to her that I have received feedback from local authorities and others involved that some of the local authorities that are involved in the national waste strategy are severely dragging their heels and are brought into the process with some difficulty. From the Executive's perspective, and perhaps that of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, work must be done to champion the cause and to bring on board the councils that are not so keen on the idea.
The landfill tax that the Tories introduced and which Gordon Brown has increased every year is making it difficult for local authorities to make the changes necessary to allow the principle of the six Rs to apply. In 1997, £23 million was paid in landfill tax. Today, it is estimated that we are paying about £40 million.
As with many other issues that the Scottish Parliament debates, surely the answer is that instead of sending that £40 million to Gordon Brown and the London Treasury, we should keep it here in Scotland, to be used by the Scottish Parliament, through the Executive. The revenues could be spent here on our recycling activities. They could help us to upgrade facilities and aid councils in meeting the exacting requirements of the European Union's landfill directive. They could also help councils to invest in new technologies, such as composting and segregated waste streams. In addition, we could consider the hypothecation of tax revenue. That is not SNP policy; it is my own thought.
The Presiding Officer is indicating that it is time for me to wind up, so I will do that.
Local councils need resources to invest in directing waste to solutions other than landfill. The problem is that the year-on-year settlements that local government gets do not make that easy. That goes for Fife Council and every other council in Scotland. It is a pity that other small nations can do it. The difference is that they have control of their own nation's resources. We do not.
I am pleased that Iain Smith secured the debate. Recycling becomes ever more important to our efforts to reduce pollution and landfill as time goes on.
I had hoped to be able to praise Fife Council for making a start in resolving its abysmal record on recycling. However, I note that matters seem to be worsening, with the council coming bottom of the Scottish local authorities recycling league in 1999 to 2000.
I am sure that Iain Smith will want to claim some credit for the Liberal Democrats on recycling in Fife. He can, of course, as Liberals are adept at recycling, as Bruce Crawford mentioned, particularly of deputy ministers. The best schemes to this day—at least, those that still exist—are from the North East Fife District Council area. However, I note that the best proportion of waste recycled in Fife—11 per cent—came in the last year of the previous Conservative Government. Since then, recycling has dropped to 1.6 per cent of Fife's waste.
Iain Smith must also accept some responsibility for the decline in performance as a former member and, I believe, leader of the opposition of Fife Council. Despite a very extensive trawl of council minutes, we have been unable to find any proposals from Mr Smith to address recycling issues.
Will the member give way?
No, I am sorry. Iain Smith had his opportunity. He should have made the most of it.
Like many other councils, Fife Council has been hit by the large drop in the value of the waste that is collected for recycling. As local government efficiencies hit home, the council cut back on recycling, as all other councils did, because it became cheaper to use landfill.
Fife Council can be proud that it has the lowest charge per household in Scotland for the collection of domestic waste. However, that has come at a price to the environment. I was shocked to learn that although the separated paper door-to-door collection was allowed to stay in place under the unitary authority—as Mr Smith will remember—people were being misled. In fact, the paper that was collected ended up in landfill. To the council's embarrassment, that point was highlighted in the local press.
Let us try to be constructive. Where do we go from here? It seems clear that the council must take steps to increase recycling on a low-cost basis. The obvious way in which to do that would be to increase the recycling facilities at sites to which people already take waste. There could also be an increase in the number of recycling bank facilities in Fife—currently, there are 131—at relatively low cost, through the creation of either new recycling collection sites or new civic amenity dumps, of which I am aware that there is a shortage. Initially, that could be targeted at communities where there is a strong demand for recycling, such as Dalgety Bay and St Andrews. Let us first encourage those who already want to be green, rather than investing in wider projects, at huge cost, that need a wider cultural change in order to be effective.
Mr Smith was right to say that North East Fife District Council made provision in its capital programme for an amenity site in St Andrews. However, it was not legally committed and there were no funds. Having raised the issue with Fife Council, I am pleased to learn that it is now actively pursuing that initiative and is trying to identify a suitable site.
I understand that Fife Council now has a waste strategy group and is taking part in national waste strategy work. I wish the council's officials well, because they have a long way to go. If they are to be successful in diverting Fife's waste away from landfill, they must quickly increase cheap and effective recycling schemes with more recycling banks, increase the number of locally available civic amenity sites and concentrate on the areas where people want to recycle. If they do that, they can make a start and, we hope, pull themselves off the bottom of the league.
I want to draw members' attention to what could be a severe problem over the next five to six years. In Europe and the United States, it is clear that successful strategies have been introduced to go down the road of intensive recycling: sorting rubbish at the source of collection, getting added value from that and then carrying on from there to recycling. Rubbish is worth £70 a tonne sorted and can be worth up to £700 a tonne once it has been recycled.
Under the SEPA plan, it was accepted that incineration—or waste to energy, as SEPA prefers to call it—was an option for local councils. Why? It is because it is the cheapest option. We will get our values severely wrong in future if we simply assign a monetary value to the way in which we deal with our rubbish. Incineration is a cheap option at the moment; it is not a cheap option in the long run. If we go down that road, we will be tying up capital for 25 years and encouraging people to produce rubbish to feed the incinerators, rather than minimising the rubbish that we create and sorting it sensibly.
A series of well-subsidised conferences, with glossy brochures, is being organised by big business—the people who want to build the dirty MRFs, or materials recovery facilities, and the incinerators. Councillors up and down the land are being heavily lobbied to go to those conferences and learn how cheap and efficient it will be for them to use that particular route for dealing with municipal waste.
Mr Harper, the debate is Fife-specific. You can take the generalities and move them to the locality, but you must speak about Fife.
I would like Iain Smith to tell me whether Fife is being lobbied in that way and is taking that seriously, and whether Fife is considering building one of the so-called environmental parks. The total cost of an environmental park is £200 million, £140 million of which goes to the waste-to-energy plant and only £60 million to recycling. The balance in those parks is entirely wrong. I should be most concerned if Fife went down that road for dealing with its rubbish.
Iain Smith has been talking about recycling in Fife and what the Liberals were doing in the early days. That is the road that Fife—and, if I may say, the whole of Scotland—should be going down. We should go for intensive recycling and added value to municipal waste, and take advantage of all the new, small, local technologies, such as vermiculture and composting, that are being developed all over Scotland. Outwith Fife, there is Campbeltown Waste Watchers. There are all the ideas that are coming up through WECAN! in Fife, which is the association of many of Fife's Local Agenda 21 organisations. There are a huge number of ideas in Fife that could be used properly—I would like the Executive to encourage them.
I did not intend to speak in the debate, but when I heard the Fife MSP talk about wheelie bins in such a denigrating fashion, I felt I had to rise and defend the honourable wheelie bin, which has brought many positive aspects to life in Fife. There is less scavenging by dogs in Fife streets, less smell and more accessibility. The wheelie bin has also dramatically improved health and safety for workers since its introduction.
Does the member accept that there are different sizes of wheelie bins? The problem to which I referred was the size of bin that Fife has adopted. If it had considered other options and other waste strategies, it might have adopted a more sensible solution, which would not allow people to throw all their rubbish into a big black bin.
We should not start reducing recycling in Fife to the colour of the council. It is more about culture, how we use the bins and the end product that we get out of the bins. Robin Harper identified some of those issues.
When I worked at Glasgow City Council, I prepared a leaflet for a door-to-door collection of waste paper. By the time the leaflet came back from the printers, the state of the market had changed from one where waste fetched £100 a tonne to one where people were charged £15 to have it taken away.
What we need to do, and what the Executive's approach is designed to do, is underpin the markets for recycling and find other uses for those products. Indeed, new money was announced for that just last week. It is interesting that the market for green glass, which has always been a problem to get rid of, was always unsustainable and rose and fell dramatically. Now we have uses for glass in road products and in the building industry for cleaning buildings. There are different ways of using those products and, once we have dealt with the markets, recycling will increase.
I disagree fundamentally with the position on landfill tax. Every successful European country that has managed to recycle effectively has a massive landfill tax—sometimes double or treble the figure for the UK. To put it bluntly, that is the incentive to deal with the problem. When councils and businesses realise that they are going to be charged landfill tax, they will deal with the problems.
Is not it true to say that, where those landfill taxes exist on the continent, most of that money is hypothecated to go back into such things as recycling and improving facilities, rather than being frittered away, as it is in this country?
I absolutely agree. If we choose to increase landfill tax, that must be considered. Unless we take a carrot-and-stick approach and put the money from landfill tax straight back into recycling, the benefit will be lost.
I realise that I have spoken for a little longer than I had intended, but I disagree with Robin Harper about the national waste strategy. Unless we have—
Fife, Fife, Fife, Mr Kerr.
I disagree with Robin Harper's attitude towards Fife's co-operation with other waste plan areas. Larger strategic issues have a role to play. We cannot afford to rule out certain proposed strategies, as they could solve wider problems. I am sure that businesses in Fife are beginning to realise the benefits of such strategies. Many of them are now going for ISO 14001 and are recycling more products.
Does Mr Kerr accept that in Fife and other local authority areas the big business people have an unfair advantage because they have all the money to do the lobbying, and the intensive recycling route is not being lobbied for?
I disagree. Like Mr Harper, I get e-mails from organisations that propose a variety of solutions. I do not think that those organisations are slow in coming forward to present alternatives to big business. However, the organisations that come up with a solution that allows us to meet our targets are the organisations that will succeed. We need to look across the board at all the solutions that are available. We must take a carrot-and-stick approach and allow resources to be spent where they are needed.
In Scotland, we start from a very low base. Historically, we favoured landfill, because we have a lot of land and we developed a reliance on it. That is now changing because of the landfill directive, but we will still need to landfill 30 per cent of Scotland's waste in some shape or form. We must ensure that landfill sites are highly engineered, highly controlled and highly monitored, that methane is extracted from them and that we get all possible benefits from them. However, we must not forget that we will still need landfill.
We have had an interesting wee run round the issues of Fife. I do not believe that the debate is about Fife Council and its colour. I believe that it is about the culture of Scotland and the need to change that culture and our approach to recycling.
I start by thanking Iain Smith for welcoming me as the new Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development. I do not know whether members have twigged what the acronym for Minister for Environment and Rural Development is—it depends on one's French, I suppose. Anyway, members will no doubt be pleased to know that the Executive supports Iain Smith's motion.
Through the adoption of the national waste strategy, we are already urging every council in Scotland, including Fife Council, to develop a strategy to increase recycling and to meet the obligations of the landfill directive. We have also established a major new strategic waste fund to allow local authorities such as Fife Council to develop that strategy. The Executive recognises the increasing importance of sustainable waste management and welcomes the debate, which, although specifically focused on Fife, is relevant to all parts of Scotland.
The recent Accounts Commission for Scotland performance indicators may have shown Fife Council at the bottom of the league for recycling in Scotland. There were, however, several other councils that were not far behind that unenviable position. In fact, six others were reported as recycling less than 3 per cent. Unfortunately, the Accounts Commission for Scotland's figures do not reflect the effort that is being put into improving Scotland's waste management record. Fife, like other waste strategy areas, is working hard to develop a long-term solution to achieving sustainable waste management.
Some of the circumstances that led to Fife's drop in recycling rates have been discussed. A combination of local government reorganisation, unstable markets and lack of finance have all been cited. Important lessons must be learned from experiences such as those, but it is important to move forward and look to the future, and the future of waste management in Scotland looks healthier than it has before. A strategy, partnerships, market development and significant funding are all realities now.
The Executive adopted the "National Waste Strategy: Scotland" in 1999. It was prepared by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and is the definitive document that will transform the way in which Scotland deals with its waste. The main focus of the strategy at the moment is the development of the 11 area waste plans. The process is being co-ordinated by SEPA and involves the local authorities, the waste management industry, local enterprise companies, community recyclers and other interested parties.
The majority of area waste plans are currently at the stage of determining the best practicable environmental option for dealing with waste. In addition to that environmental assessment, each potential option will be assessed against economic, social and socioeconomic factors, as well as practicality. For members who are concerned—and Robin Harper articulated his concerns—that Scotland will jump from landfill dependency to the energy-from-waste route, please be reassured that all the options will be scrutinised carefully. Some energy-from-waste facilities may be required, but only as part of an integrated solution.
Is guidance given to councils on what the Executive means by the best practical option?
I could not quote Robin Harper the exact guidance, but I would be happy to find it for him.
We must ensure that each area waste group closely examines the range of options. I want to reassure Robin Harper, as he mentioned the possibility of moving very quickly to the energy-from-waste route. I share that concern, but we must consider energy-from-waste facilities as part of an integrated solution.
A major package of funding for waste management was announced in last year's spending review. A strategic waste fund worth £50.4 million will be available for local authorities—part of that will be for Fife—over the next three years for the implementation of area waste plans. Local authorities have been allocated almost £50 million extra grant-aided expenditure over three years for environmental services; it is for them to decide how much of it they apply to waste management.
In addition, a further £3 million has been distributed this financial year to allow local authorities to increase their recycling and composting efforts. Many authorities will be able to show significant improvements in recycling rates in the immediate future as a result of that funding. Fife's allocation of £187,000 will be spent on an innovative central composting initiative as well as home composting, wastepaper collections and other recycling schemes.
The motion urges Fife to meet its obligations under the European landfill directive and Iain Smith asked about European targets. The main targets in the landfill directive apply to the reduction in biodegradable municipal waste that is going to landfill. The first of the targets has to be reached by 2010. By then, we will reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste in landfill to 75 per cent of its 1995 level and we will reduce it to 35 per cent of its 1995 level by 2020.
A system of tradeable permits is to be introduced to meet the targets. The design and operation of the permit system and the way in which the targets will be allocated are to be determined in a further consultation exercise.
Iain Smith also asked about market development. Finding an end use for recycled materials is often cited as one of the main barriers to recycling. The Executive is supporting both the ReMaDe Scotland programme and the UK-wide waste and resources action programme—known as WRAP—in a bid to overcome those barriers. The two programmes complement each other. ReMaDe Scotland is focused on providing local markets for local materials, whereas WRAP aims to address wider issues such as removing national and institutional barriers to recycling as well as developing reprocessing capacity in the UK.
Today's debate is a welcome contribution to raising the profile of an issue increasingly important in Scotland. Last month, there was a wide-ranging debate on sustainable development in Parliament, and many of the waste issues that were raised then have been reiterated by members today. Although Fife Council might have been singled out as a focus for raising the issues, it is clear that they are applicable to Scotland as a whole. Significant changes will occur in the way that Scotland deals with its waste over the next few years and, although many of them will not show results overnight, they will benefit our nation in years to come.
Waste management cannot be dealt with in isolation. We must work with local authorities, SEPA, the industry, the voluntary sector and non-governmental organisations. Waste awareness and education will need to increase if we are to engage the public in the issues. Like myself, Robin Harper is a former teacher and knows the importance of raising these issues with young people. We must encourage people not just to recycle waste but to buy recycled as well, as that will create a demand for recycled products.
It is becoming more widely accepted that the move to sustainable waste management will be costly. Perhaps it is time that people realised that the cost of dealing with waste will have to increase. At the moment, the average household pays only £50 a year for collection and disposal; avoiding landfill will cost more.
However, members should be assured that the Scottish Executive is committed to the issue and is in for the long haul in assisting Fife—and every other local authority—to achieve waste management solutions fit for the 21st century.
Meeting closed at 18:02.