Question reference: S6W-05516
- Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
- Date lodged: 7 January 2022
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Current status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 24 January 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government, in each year for which records are available, what emissions have been reported for the incineration of (a) household waste, (b) commercial and industrial waste and (c) all waste included in its Climate Change Plan.
Answer
The data specified in the question is held in a range of different data sources as summarised below. As each element of the answer is taken from a different data source there will be variations in methodology which mean that they are not directly comparable.
The Carbon Footprint of Scotland’s Household Waste publication published by Zero Waste Scotland ( 2019 Carbon Metric HH Brief - V01.00.pdf (zerowastescotland.org.uk) ) provides estimates of emissions from household waste. The relevant information is provided in the following table.
Year | Household waste incineration (MtCO2e) |
2007 | - |
2008 | - |
2009 | - |
2010 | - |
2011 | 0.02 |
2012 | 0.01 |
2013 | 0.01 |
2014 | 0.03 |
2015 | 0.03 |
2016 | 0.03 |
2017 | 0.03 |
2018 | 0.05 |
2019 | 0.13 |
The Green House Gas Inventory includes information on emissions from the disposal of commercial and industrial waste via incineration without energy recovery. This mainly comprises sewage sludges and clinical wastes. However, separate information on the disposal of commercial and industry waste with energy recovery is not held, as only total emissions data that includes municipal wastes is available from these facilities
Information on emissions from the incineration of all waste can be calculated from the Scottish Pollutant Release Inventory (SPRI) published by SEPA. The relevant information is summarised in the following table. This includes emissions from incineration of all waste types with and without energy recovery.
Year | All incineration facilities (MtCO2e) |
2007 | 0.24 |
2008 | 0.25 |
2009 | 0.26 |
2010 | 0.52 |
2011 | 0.27 |
2012 | 0.28 |
2013 | 0.31 |
2014 | 0.67 |
2015 | 0.65 |
2016 | 1.06 |
2017 | 1.14 |
2018 | 0.96 |
2019 | 1.57 |