- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of Audit Scotland’s analysis of the greater cost of delivering higher waste recycling targets, what additional resources will be available to meet the higher targets in the Scottish Government’s new waste strategy (a) across Scotland and (b) in each local authority area in each of the next three years.
Answer
The Scottish Government will provide local authorities with record levels of funding over the period covered by the spending review 2008-11. The vast majority of the funding, including the former ring-fenced Strategic Waste Fund
, will be provided by means of a block grant. It will therefore be the responsibility of each local authority to allocate financial resources to meet its obligations, needs and priorities.
In addition to this, Scottish Government''s spending plans for the period 2008-11 included an allocation of £154 million to the Zero Waste Fund. The proposed expenditure across Scotland is £41.1 million in 2008-09; £54.4 million in 2009-10, and £58.7 million in 2010-11. Around £50 million of the total will be spent on support of delivery bodies but the remaining £100 million is intended to be spent on putting the necessary infrastructure in place to meet our longer term waste targets post 2010-11. A short-life working group will shortly be established between Scottish Government and COSLA to determine how this financial resource should be best deployed.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the ministerial statement on 24 January 2008, whether it intends to set specific levels for composting.
Answer
The targets announced in my statement on 24 January 2008 were combined targets for both recycling and composting of municipal waste. The review of the National Waste Plan will consider the case for separate composting targets.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the 60% efficiency targets for waste-to-energy plants, referred to in the ministerial statement on 24 January 2008, will be enforced from day one of the operation of the plants or whether the targets relate to the theoretical ability of such plants to achieve high efficiency levels.
Answer
The government''s intention is that energy from waste plants should have efficiency levels of at least 60%. However, the government recognises that in some cases developments such as planned housing or factories to take the heat generated by the energy from waste plants may not be in place when any plants start to operate. In these cases, the government would expect the operators of the plants to have clear plans in place to use the heat once other developments are in place. The operators would, of course, be expected to develop facilities capable of utilising waste heat at the outset.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the ministerial statement on 24 January 2008, whether it will clarify what exactly will be counted as recycling in respect of meeting waste targets.
Answer
The previous administration, in Technical Notes relating to spending reviews, used a definition of recycling, including organic waste which is composted, contained in the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997. This definition is that recycling means the reprocessing in a production process of the waste materials for the original purpose or for other purposes including organic recycling but excluding energy recovery.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the ministerial statement on 24 January 2008, whether it intends to agree specific targets on waste with each local authority.
Answer
Yes the Scottish Government does intend to agree specific targets on waste with each local authority, principally to ensure that each local authority diverts sufficient biodegradable municipal waste from landfill in order for Scotland to meet its EU Landfill Directive obligation in 2010 and also to ensure that each local authority contributes to National Indicators 39 (amount of waste going to landfill) and 32 (ecological footprint) within the Scottish Government''s National Performance Framework.
Scottish Government will seek to ensure that local authorities contribute towards the National Performance Framework by agreeing local outcomes to be included in their single outcome agreements (SOAs).
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether, in respect of its targets on waste, it will pay the fines of local authorities that now have to change their plans for dealing with waste, following the ministerial statement on 24 January 2008.
Answer
No. The Landfill Allowance Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2005 set maximum amounts of biodegradable municipal waste that can be disposed of by local authorities to landfill each year and any penalty liabilities that are notified by the Scottish ministers under the regulations fall to the local authorities themselves. In any event, the distribution of year-on-year allowances has only been set up until 2010 and none of the local authority plans envisaged delivery of infrastructure before this time.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to update planning guidance on waste in order to reflect the new waste targets and, if so, when.
Answer
As the Government indicated in the Parliamentary statement on waste on 24 January 2008, we will ensure that the new National Planning Framework reflects the government''s key objectives on waste.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive why, following the recommendations of the Sustainable Development Commission, it has not extended its waste strategy to include commercial waste.
Answer
The Parliamentary Statement on waste policy on 24 January announced the government''s intention to review the National Waste Plan. The review will consider commercial and industrial waste and, as indicated in the statement, the government will consult on new targets to reduce the amount of commercial waste that goes to landfill.
Landfill Tax, a key policy lever in relation to commercial and industrial waste, is a reserved matter. However, the Scottish Government is carrying out or supporting a wide range of work on commercial waste including producer responsibility, the report by the Wood Fuel Task Force and Envirowise, which provides advice to business on waste prevention:
http://www.usewoodfuel.co.uk/Docs/WFTF%20final%20report%20for%20web.pdf, http://www.envirowise.gov.uk/scotland.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Scottish Environment Protection Agency will be expected to give local authorities specific advice in achieving the proximity principle, whereby there is a presumption that all schemes will be located close to the source of the waste and will be of an appropriate scale.
Answer
It is not for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) to advise local authorities on the proximity principle. Instead, it is for the land-use planning system to determine the location of plants. SEPA is a statutory consultee on planning applications relating to waste management facilities.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether, in respect of its new targets on waste, it will pay the fines of local authorities that have submitted plans to it which the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment has not approved.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-9129 on 20 February 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.