Question reference: S6W-05168
- Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 21 December 2021
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Current status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 12 January 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what measures it plans to put in place to reduce the reliance on incinerators for the purpose of waste disposal, in light of SEPA household waste data for 2020 that reportedly shows that waste managed by incineration increased by 33.6% since 2019.
Answer
In Scotland, it is already illegal to send waste collected separately for recycling to incineration or landfill. However, we need to make sure that how we treat residual waste, which cannot be reused or recycled, aligns with our emissions reduction targets. That is why we have appointed an independent chair to review the role incineration plays in the waste hierarchy.
We also have a range of measures in train to reduce the amount of waste produced and increase the proportion of waste recycled across Scotland. These include laying Regulations before Parliament that ban some of the most problematic single use plastic products; a £70 million Recycling Improvement Fund for local authorities; and implementation of Scotland’s ambitious deposit return scheme.