Chamber and committees

There are a range of markets for recycled plastics. Within Scotland, there are markets for agricultural film and fish farm plastic. Within the UK, markets exist for plastic bottles. There is also demand for plastic bottles elsewhere in the EU and from the far east.

The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has recently published a Survey of Applications, Markets and Growth Opportunities for Recycled Plastics in the UK. This report can be found on the WRAP website at:

http://www.wrap.org.uk/templates/temp_publication.rm?id=698&publication=278.

Information on recycling facilities across Scotland can be found on the “Sort-It” section of the Scottish Waste Awareness Group website at http://www.wascot.org.uk.

We do not hold this precise information. However, around 10% of the municipal waste stream consists of plastics and around 0.3% of the municipal waste stream consists of plastic bags. We would expect, therefore, that most recycling of plastics from the municipal waste stream would not relate to plastic bags but would relate to other products, such as plastic bottles.

Precise figures are not available. However, we estimate that around 200 million plastic milk bottles are distributed a year in Scotland.

Information on the recycling of plastic is available in the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s Waste Data Digests, which can be found at:

http://www.sepa.org.uk/publications/wds/index.htm.

The Waste and Resources Action Programme have also recently published a survey on plastic bottle recycling across the UK. This can be found at:

http://www.wrap.org.uk/templates/temp_publication.rm?id=698&publication=1701.

Following concerns about theimpact of the proposed changes to agri-environment scheme payment rates announcedon 9 May, I instructed that a further review of the rates should be undertaken inconsultation with stakeholders. The first meeting of the stakeholder review groupwill take place on 13 June.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-14498 on 16 March 2005. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-16236 on 12 May 2005. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Analysis of Caledonian MacBrayne’s services carried out by the Scottish Executive as part of work undertaken to support its discussions with the European Commission in relation to bringing the Clyde and Hebrides services into line with EU State aid rules established that all of the operated routes were loss making.

The gathering of information on foot passengers using Caledonian MacBrayne’s Gourock to Dunoon service was begun in December 2004 to assist in providing full information to potential operators, should we continue efforts to identify an operator willing to run the service on a commercial basis following the completion of current discussions with the European Commission. Collection of this type of information was not previously considered necessary for the purposes of monitoring the annual deficit grant funding to Caledonian MacBrayne Ltd. The company’s accounts are audited on an annual basis and the company’s auditors have indicated that they are satisfied that it has in place measures to ensure that the passenger only deficit funding is applied appropriately.