Chamber and committees

The Scottish Household Survey 2017 shows that there has been a steady increase in the number of people using food waste recycling caddies, rather than throwing food out with general waste. Less than half (48%) of households now dispose of food waste with their general rubbish. The proportion of households making use of local authority-provided food caddies was 55 % in 2017

In response to (b), the duty to segregate food waste in the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012 covers approximately 80% of Scotland’s population. The latest figures are from September 2015 and can be found in Zero Waste Scotland’s report: How Much Food Waste Is There in Scotland? , published in 2016, showing that over 1.5 million Scottish households had access to food waste collection.

The upcoming review of the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan in addition to the development of a Routemap to deliver our ambitious 2025 waste and recycling targets will consider improvements to the data collection and monitoring relating to food waste.

Participation rate information for businesses in Scotland is not available centrally and local councils should be approached in seeking this information.

Scotland’s Waste Data Strategy board keeps Scotland’s evidence requirements for waste and materials under constant review.

Previous analyses of the composition of household municipal waste were undertaken in 2009 and 2014-15. Zero Waste Scotland had planned to undertake a further analysis in 2020, however, this was delayed due to Covid-19. Work to develop local authority projects restarted in July 2021 and waste sampling and analysis is planned to start in October 2021.

Zero Waste Scotland has forecast costs of £155,000 in 2021-22. The staff resource allocation for this project is not recorded to this level of detail.

The latest figures are from September 2015 and can be found in Zero Waste Scotland’s report: How Much Food Waste Is There in Scotland? , published in 2016, showing that over 1.5 million Scottish households had access to food waste collection.

Detailed modelling to provide projections of future recycling performance is being undertaken as part of our work to develop a route map towards our 2025 recycling and waste targets, as set out in our update to the Climate Change Plan.

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.

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.

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.

This information is publically available through the SEPA Recyclate Quality Reporting Tool, which can be accessed here: https://informatics.sepa.org.uk/RecyclateQuality/

The tool presents data from samples taken from material streams entering and exiting material recovery facilities (MFRs). The tool reports the percentage of materials collected that are considered to be ‘target’ materials for recycling.

In April 2019, we published the Waste Markets Study which assessed the treatment options for Scottish biodegradable municipal waste. The study is available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/waste-markets-study-full-report/

We have also commissioned work to assess the residual waste treatment capacity needs up to 2025, in light of our commitment to end the practice of landfilling biodegradable municipal waste by 2025. This work is ongoing and we will publish it in due course.