Current status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 12 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how banning fossil-based plastic from incineration, as proposed at recommendation 17 of the report, Stop, Sort, Burn, Bury? Independent Review of the Role of Incineration in the Waste Hierarchy in Scotland, could mitigate the impact of the inclusion of incineration in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in 2028.
The Scottish Government published its response to Dr Colin Church’s second and final report on 5 May 2023, which focused on options to decarbonise residual waste infrastructure in Scotland.
We welcomed the report’s recommendations in supporting the continued reduction of emissions associated with waste, whilst also recognising Dr Church’s observation that “properly regulated incineration has an important role to play as part of the waste hierarchy in managing Scotland’s unavoidable, unrecyclable residual waste in a sanitary manner”.
We acknowledge of course that the residual waste sector is a complex system and, in accordance with Dr Church’s Recommendation 1, our Circular Economy and Waste Route Map (published in December 2024) sets out a series of ongoing and future policy commitments to achieve Dr Church’s Recommendation 1 (i.e. “rapidly seek further reductions in the proportion of recyclable materials in the residual waste stream”).
This includes policies such as banning single use plastic items, the implementation of the packaging extended producer responsibility scheme and a new co-designed statutory Code of Practice for household waste and recycling.
In its May 2023 response, the Scottish Government accepted Recommendation 17 in principle. While the Scottish Government agrees that phasing out the incineration of plastic waste is key to decarbonisation, our approach must be balanced, as banning it outright could lead to an increase in inappropriate disposal.
Our Route Map commitments will help to deliver increased reuse and recycling in accordance with our Circular Economy goals and help drive the reduction in fossil-based plastics going to incineration.