- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many households have access to food waste collections.
Answer
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.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what work it has done to model future recycling performance.
Answer
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.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to help facilitate joint discussions between local authorities and industry regarding recycling and materials recovery.
Answer
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.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of any improvements identified in capturing commercial and industrial waste data since 2016.
Answer
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.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on food waste prevention and reduction programmes since 2013.
Answer
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.
Table 1. Scottish Government food waste advertising spend |
Year | Campaign | Advertising spend |
2013-14 | Eat In Season | £79,903.03 |
2013-14 | Food Waste | £573,102.70 |
2014-15 | Food Provenance | £80,049.11 |
2015-16 | Greener Scotland | £53,042.18 |
2016-17 | Greener Scotland | £103,742.55 |
2017-18 | Greener Scotland | £88,893.75 |
2018-19 | Greener Scotland | £217,737.81 |
2018-19 | Food waste | £303,516.65 |
2019-2020 | Food waste | £53,042.18 |
TOTAL | | £1,553,029.96 |
A breakdown of Zero Waste Scotland’s spend on advertising and outreach activities to promote food waste reduction for 2019-20 and during 2020-21 (to date) and the outcomes of these are set out in Table 2. This forms part of the overall approx. £1.23 million spend mentioned above.
Table 2. Zero Waste Scotland advertising spend and outcomes |
Year | Advertising spend | Outreach spend | Pieces of PR coverage | Increase in social media following | Training delivered on 'Love Food Hate Waste' |
2019-20 | £193,000 | £76,000 | 437 | 17,000 | 1269 individuals |
2020-21 (to date) | £105,000 | £20,000 | 137 | 13,000 | 166 individuals |
TOTAL | £298,000 | £96,000 | | | |
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what (a) baseline material input standards have been established for material recovery facilities (MRFs) and (b) improvement in output quality from MRFs has been delivered since 2016.
Answer
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.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what modelling work it has undertaken on any requirement for residual waste treatment capacity in Scotland, and whether it will provide a breakdown of any forecasts since 2016 for such requirements.
Answer
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.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi McAllan on 9 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-32506 by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020, whether it will provide updated figures to include spend during 2020-21.
Answer
Zero Waste Scotland have spent the following amount of money on tackling litter from 2015 to 2021:
Year | Spend on tackling litter |
2020-21 | £283,807 |
2019-20 | £92,397 |
2018-19 | £119,081 |
2017-18 | £379,465 |
2016-17 | £480,786 |
2015-16 | £658,647 |
Additional funding was given to Zero Waste Scotland in 2015-16 to 2017-18 for specific projects, such as funding Keep Scotland Beautiful’s Clean Up Scotland Campaign and development of the Litter Monitoring System.
The Scottish Government and Crown Estates Scotland have funded Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB), for their "Upstream Battle" marine litter campaign. The details are as follows:
| | Financial Year | Funding |
Scottish Government | 2018-2019 | £30,000 |
Crown Estates Scotland | 2018-2019 | £25,000 |
Crown Estates Scotland | 2020-2021 | £20,000 |
The Scottish Government does not separately account for staff time dedicated to work on tackling litter.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 8 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on whether a recommendation was submitted on a preferred design of a HazDoc system for waste monitoring.
Answer
We are not aware of a specific recommendation for the preferred full design for a HazDoc system submitted to Scottish Government.
The development of an electronic system for hazardous waste is being taken forward as part of our work to implement an electronic waste tracking system, as set out in our update to the Climate Change Plan. The design of this system so far has involved input from a range of stakeholders and will be informed through a consultation planned in Autumn.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 8 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what impact its deposit return scheme will have on the ability of local authorities to fulfil the aims of the Household Recycling Charter, agreed by COSLA in 2015, which seeks to help generate large volumes of high-quality recyclate from home recycling.
Answer
The Scottish Government is currently working with Zero Waste Scotland, COSLA and an Advisory Group, comprising local authority Waste Managers, to review the Code of Practice that accompanies the Household Recycling Charter. One of the aims of the review is to ensure that local authorities will still be able to fulfil the aims of the Charter when Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme is introduced.
