Chamber and committees

Local authorities are likely to see significant benefits from Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) as set out in the DRS Full Business Case Stage 1, published on 8 May 2019. Zero Waste Scotland has been working closely with local authorities to assess the likely impacts in more detail and we intend to share a summary of that work with the Environment, Climate Change, and Land Reform Committee in due course.

In order to provide data for the review on 21 November 2019 the Scottish Government issued a targeted survey to enforcement authorities and other key stakeholders. The window for responses closed on 21 February 2020. Analysis of those responses is currently ongoing and the report will be published in due course.

The Scottish Government Guidance on Dog Training Aids, issued in October 2018, provides important advice on all aversive training techniques, including static pulse collars, for both dog owners and those enforcing the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006. A commitment was made to review the effectiveness of the Guidance in helping to prevent the mis-use of aversive training methods after 12 months in light of the practical experience of Scottish enforcement bodies. That review is currently underway.

Future consideration of a potential ban on static pulse collars will be undertaken within the context of a Scottish Government consultation on electronic collars in 2015-16, and within the context of the results of the review on the effectiveness of the current Guidance on Dog Training Aids.

Zero Waste Scotland is working with the National Bed Federation on a three-year research project to increase mattress recycling and encourage more sustainable design. This will include bringing forward proposals for a producer responsibility system that will encourage manufacturers and retailers to establish sustainable practices such as mattresses that last longer, are easier to repair, and easier to recycle at end of life. Mattresses also form part of our discussions with the UK Government on development of additional statutory extended producer responsibility schemes.

The Woodland Carbon Guarantee has been designed to help address the relatively high costs of woodland creation in many parts of England, which have been identified as a significant barrier to the achievement of England’s planting targets. These costs are not reflected in Scotland, where 84% of all new UK woodland was established in 2018-19.

The Woodland Carbon Code, launched in 2011 and managed by Scottish Forestry, provides long-term assurance for land managers and investors involved in tree planting for carbon sequestration. The Code is an important mechanism to attract private finance into woodland creation, helping to meet targets for woodland planting and for greenhouse gas removals.

The Code has all the major components required to build market trust and credibility including robust underpinning science, independent certification, a carbon registry and firm rules on additionality and permanence of CO 2 removals.

One of the barriers to long term certainty is lack of clarity on future funding from the UK Government – we will continue to press for this.

Outputs from the workstream “Securing re-processing capacity and determining the impact on existing infrastructure” include:

• Analysis of the impact of the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) on individual local authority recycling collections services and infrastructure.
• Additional analysis of the impact on residual waste management associated with the removal of DRS materials from the residual waste stream.
• A financial and infrastructure impact assessment for the waste and resources sector.
• Activity relating to reprocessing, including work to attract investment in Scottish-based PET reprocessing capacity as well as engagement with the existing glass reprocessing operators in Scotland.

Outputs from the workstream “Communications” include:

• Outputs focussed on raising awareness of DRS with the public, producers, retailers and communities, including website, creative content, stakeholder and consumer events, information campaigns, and sponsorships.
• Research projects to inform consumer messaging, equalities, and campaign development, as well as to assist with communications aspects of scheme implementation.

We have been making progress over recent years on meeting the target however the current household recycling rate figures indicate that there is more to do to ensure we achieve it.

We have set out an ambitious programme to go further in increasing recycling rates and supporting the circular economy, for example we will be hosting a summit by the end of this year to ensure a more consistent, efficient and easier to understand approach to recycling and recently launched the circular economy bill consultation paper.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing littering and delivering against the National Litter Strategy. In 2018, we published the updated Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse (CoPLAR) and we will bringing forward legislation for a new penalty regime for littering from vehicles as part of the Circular Economy Bill, which are commitments we made in the National Litter Strategy. The National Litter Strategy contains a commitment to conduct a review in 2020 and we are currently considering how best we take this forward.

Local Authorities are the lead enforcing authority for contaminated land and are responsible for making information on contaminated land in their area publically accessible via public registers.

Flood Map data made available by The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) provides a nationally valuable resource in support of strategic flood risk decisions. SEPA aims to develop the Flood Maps to ensure the data is more readily and widely available and the Scottish Government is discussing with SEPA how this might best be achieved.