Chamber and committees

A recent report by Zero Waste Scotland suggests that the greenhouse gas emissions from the incineration of residual waste at Scottish energy from waste plants are on average lower than landfilling the same waste. That being said, in terms of environmental impact prevention, reuse and recycling are always preferable over energy recovery or disposal of waste as waste management options.

The most recent statistics shows that carbon emissions associated with Scotland’s household waste in 2019 dropped once again on the previous year to reach the lowest level since official recording began. These statistics are available here: https://www.sepa.org.uk/environment/waste/waste-data/waste-data-reporting/

Energy from waste facilities (EfW) are already required to report energy generation to SEPA on an annual basis. Permits issued by SEPA to EfW plants require each facility to produce a Heat and Power Plan and report annual progress to SEPA each year. This report includes information on energy generation in the previous year and progress towards meeting heat use targets.

The allocation to Scottish Enterprise’s research and development budget for 2020-21 and equivalent spend in the preceding years is as follows. These figures include from FY2018/19 to FY2020/21, an additional £15 million each year for business R&D grants that the Scottish Government has made available.

The Scottish Government last met representatives of the aviation industry on 10 November 2020.

Requests for assessments under the Food Waste Reduction Business Support Service have significantly reduced compared to the previous year due to the impact of COVID-19.

However next year we hope to increase the support to the hospitality sector, increasing opportunities for staff training and providing more bespoke support in measuring and monitoring of waste, supporting behaviour change. The advice and support service will offer support to non-SMEs, whereas in previous years support was SME-focused.

Certain subsectors have been identified and prioritised but planned work has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Zero Waste Scotland and partners have developed a specific toolkit for the hospitality and food service sector which has been promoted and shared with key stakeholders, including through a regional workshop (which 40 businesses attended), webinars (235 sign-ups) and round table events (12 operators with multiple businesses). The toolkit includes an e-module, a quick start guide and posters for kitchens to reinforce best practice and behaviours. Further sector specific guidance is planned for the next year, and will take into account the impacts of COVID-19 for certain sectors.

Zero Waste Scotland has carried out a mapping of the redistribution landscape in Scotland, including analysis of the challenges and barriers facing redistribution activities and engagement with stakeholders on the potential solutions and support needs.

We also remain committed to consulting on the Scottish Government’s proposals for an obligation for food retail sites over a certain size to ensure that they redistribute edible products in due course that will inform the development and scope of what an advice and support service for community redistribution projects could deliver and how.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. This information is held at a local level by individual local authorities and each authority would need to be contacted to provide the details.

Information on campaigns run by, or in association with, Scottish Government is provided in the following table. A significant proportion of litter prevention communication is led by local authorities in line with their statutory responsibilities.

Responsibility for dealing with litter primarily rests with local councils as part of their role in delivering waste services.

Zero Waste Scotland have spent the following amount of money on tackling litter from 2015 to 2020: