Chamber and committees

That is an interesting provision in the bill. If the convener will allow me, it is worth my going into that in some detail, as it is an important point. I have the letter from COSLA in front of me. Councillor Gail Macgregor says:

“There is no need to make the Charter for kerbside collection services mandatory. All 32 Councils have signed up to it.”

However, only a third of the councils actually implement the charter. That is the problem with a voluntary charter: there are no consequences for not implementing it. You can sign on the dotted line and then not do it.

The bill proposes a move to a mandatory code of practice to be developed by councils so that we know that it is feasible and that it provides for different geographies, tenancy types, building types and built environments. It needs to have all those provisions, and it needs to take into account where councils currently are. As we know, some councils are very nearly at their 60 per cent target and some are a long way away from it.

Given all the development that needs to be done, the bill proposes a mandatory target. The reason for that is evidence based—it is because that is what works elsewhere. We have international examples of that. Wales is, of course, our closest example. That is how Wales has driven recycling to the levels that they are at there.

In Scotland, recycling levels have stalled at just over 40 per cent on average—between 40 and 45 per cent. We have stalled, so we have to do something new. We have to bring in what works. The Verity house agreement commits to co-design, but it also commits to being evidence led, and the evidence tells us that we need to do this.

I do not have the data on that but, if the information is with SEPA, I presume that we can write to the committee with it.

My reassurance is that we will follow the Verity house process and do the co-design together. It is not entirely a question of imposing things on local authorities and expecting them to get on with it. Together, we need to understand what local authorities want to achieve and how best to achieve that. As I highlighted earlier, it is not just about what we want local authorities to do for us in the waste space; it is about the opportunities that we can help them to unlock so that they get better value from their recyclate and get income streams to reduce the costs that are associated with litter and handling waste. Monica Lennon made a good point on reusable nappies, for example. By taking items out of the waste stream, we save local authorities money.

Douglas Lumsden will understand that there are lots of different moving parts. There are different scopes for savings and different revenue-raising opportunities. Of course, a big thing that will be coming into play is the extended producer responsibility for packaging. That will result in substantial funding for councils, but we do not have the details yet. All those resources can go into the mix, alongside developing an approach that ensures that we will be successful.

There is a really good example of that. One of the things that we considered in the consultation was whether to apply those regulations to food, but we decided not to do that because food businesses are already doing quite a lot in that space, so we felt that legislation would not be necessary.

You are absolutely right that it looks as if regulation might be necessary here. It is estimated that about £22 million-worth of items that would be covered by that provision are destroyed by landfill and incineration in Scotland each year. That is £22 million-worth of perfectly usable items that are going not to the needy or to people who could use them, but straight to landfill or incineration, both of which produce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.

We need to address that by developing the regulations and through consultation. We also have the French model. I am sure that we all want to achieve that; nobody wants perfectly usable goods to end up on the bonfire. Having that provision in the bill is an important step.

As for Mark Ruskell’s question about specific examples, I do not have any specific examples with me. Officials may have some, or we could write to you about that.

I am happy to go into that. I listed all the elements of the bill that could relate to reuse in answer to Ben Macpherson’s earlier question, so I will not take up the member’s time by going through that again. The bill contains substantial provisions throughout to increase reuse, specifically those in section 6(3). The regulations that can be created under section 6(1) may set targets for one or more of the following:

“reducing the consumption of materials, ... increasing reuse, ... increasing recycling, ... reducing waste”.

That is what is in the bill. We can set targets around increasing reuse and around the consumption of materials.

The nitty-gritty is what those targets would be and who they would apply to, whether it be local authorities, businesses and certain other sectors. We need to do some work to understand exactly how those targets would apply.

I am sure that everyone in this room agrees that sectors, businesses and local authorities would need to understand and be involved in developing those targets. We need to do that work together. Realistically, we are likely to be looking at a suite of targets, because things will be different for businesses as compared with local authorities, for example.

I am really pleased by that question because that has been on my mind, too. There are six provisions in the bill that look directly at moving up the hierarchy of reuse, and the bill is just one part of the larger strategic framework that will be described in the route map that I know you are all very keen to see, and which will shortly be published in draft form as part of the extended producer responsibility scheme.

There are six provisions that are directly related to reuse and they start at the beginning with strategy and targets. I have the bill in front of me and note that it specifically says that a circular economy is one in which

“the production and distribution of things are designed so as to reduce the consumption of materials”.

Reducing consumption of materials is the fundamental driver for the strategy and for the national targets. Setting out that strategy and looking at the high-level consumption of materials means implementing the waste hierarchy, which puts reuse near the top—less consumption, then reuse, then recycling and so on. That hierarchy would be embedded in the strategy. That is the overall principle.

The next provision that relates to reuse is the placing of restrictions on the disposal of unsold consumer goods. We have seen other countries put that in place. For example, in France, there is a ban on companies destroying clothes, cosmetics, hygiene products and electrical items. That would apply to both sold and unsold items. Some items are not even getting used at the moment and, in many cases, are going directly to landfill or incineration, so that provision would ensure that those items would be used in the first place, rather than being wasted.

The next provision that relates to reuse is on charges on single-use items. We have all seen how effective the charge on single-use plastic bags or bags in shops has been in driving the reuse of bags. We probably all have cupboards full of reusable bags that we take to the shops, or we keep them in the boots of our cars. That charge has driven reuse, which is the purpose of single-use charges. We intend to implement the first single-use charge on reusable coffee cups specifically to drive reuse by encouraging people to use reusable cups rather than disposable ones.

The next provision of the bill that we can use to drive things up the waste hierarchy is the code of practice. As I have said, that will be developed with councils under the Verity house agreement. I know from the committee’s earlier evidence session that councils are interested in looking at how they can improve reuse, and there are already some excellent examples of that within our councils.

The next provision that relates to that is the one on reporting waste and surplus. That provision was initially intended to cover food, but the reporting of waste and surplus in construction is a high priority for me. The public reporting of waste and surplus does two things. First, it makes the businesses that use those materials aware of what they are wasting and that it is not good for their bottom line, and it also makes them aware of the surpluses that they might have that might be of use to other people. Making records of those materials publicly available also means that other organisations and businesses can look at them, see that they are identified and then reuse them. As the member rightly highlighted, the construction industry is a key one in this case. When people dismantle or repair buildings, they can generate a lot of potentially reusable material, and it needs to be reported on so that people know that it is there and they can use it.

We need to develop the targets together with local authorities, which we have committed to doing.

Our islands impact assessment in relation to the bill highlights that there are significant opportunities for islands. In Kirkwall in Orkney, there is an excellent facility for reusing furniture, which is doing work in that circular economy space. There are opportunities in Orkney to move things up that waste hierarchy.

We commit to setting those targets in line with local authorities and taking the geographic impacts and so on into consideration. The national target is to meet those 60 per cent recycling rates, but Orkney will, of course, contribute only a very small amount to that overall. There needs to be some common sense when applying those targets.

That will need to be developed through the code of practice. I do not intend to impose an approach on councils; I intend to co-develop it with them. However, you are right. There are some really good international examples in that area. For example, the Scandinavian countries—not just within the countries, but across multiple countries—have standardised bin colours and labels so that, whether someone is at a train station, at home or at their place of work, the same colours are used for the same materials. We could aim for that if local authorities are interested in doing so.

Absolutely. We need to work with local authorities to set out what we want local authorities to deliver and what they are prepared to deliver, and then, of course, we need to set out how that investment will take place.

Do you want to come in, Janet?

I want to make clear that Douglas Lumsden is discussing two different provisions.

I will first cover section 11 on household waste requirements. It is already a criminal offence to not respond to a notice to desist from contaminating recycling. No new offence is being created there. The overall aim of the creation of a fixed-penalty notice for the offence is to give local authorities a more proportionate and civil offence route to go down, as opposed to the criminal sanctions, which are the only option right now. Local authorities already have an obligation to enforce that, but, obviously, criminal proceedings for contaminating recycling would be appropriate only in some pretty extreme circumstances. Having a fixed-penalty notice regime gives local authorities a much more proportionate response. Contamination of recyclate is a big problem for local authorities and is very costly for them, which means that having effective powers for dealing with that offence is helpful to them.

On the other matter, it is useful that we have Mr Fraser with us today, because the provision is similar to what he proposes in his member’s bill. The provision is about creating a new criminal offence relating to the householder’s duty of care. Householders already have a duty to ensure that their waste is dealt with properly and that it does not become part of a waste crime. Currently, however, although the person who tips the waste can be accused of a criminal offence, there is no offence associated with that for the householder.

The provision will put in place for Scotland a provision equivalent to that which already exists in England and Wales. It states that a householder can be charged with a fixed-penalty notice if the local authority

“has reason to believe that”

the householder has breached the duty of care and has not taken “reasonable steps” to ensure that the waste handler to whom they have given their waste is licensed.