Chamber and committees

The third party sale of puppies is already regulated in Scotland under The Licensing of Animal Dealers (Young Cats and Dogs) (Scotland) Regulations 2009. Under these Regulations persons who acquire young cats or dogs less than 84 days old with a view to selling them require an animal dealing licence from the local authority.

More widely, The Scottish Government is progressing work to update and strengthen existing licensing legislation covering dog, cat and rabbit breeders, pet sellers and animal sanctuaries and rehoming activities.

Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 requires all Local Authorities, as the primary regulators, to produce inspection strategies for their area which are publically available and are subject to periodic review.

When Local Authorities formally identify a site as contaminated land they are required to notify SEPA and to place the site on a public register.

In addition, the Scottish Government has specific powers under Part IIA to request SEPA to produce a ‘State of Contaminated Land in Scotland’ report. Local Authorities are required to provide information on the condition of contaminated land sites to SEPA for inclusion in the report.

This information is not held centrally but may be available through contacting Zero Waste Scotland directly.

The Scottish Government will shortly bring forward secondary legislation to establish a deposit return scheme. That legislation will, amongst other things, outline the conditions to be met by any person acting as a scheme administrator.

In announcing the design of the scheme, Scottish Ministers made it clear that the proposed model for the scheme administrator would be industry led. As such the details of the corporate structure are for industry stakeholders to decide and agree. The Scottish Government is offering co-ordination and support through the Industry Advisory Group.

Representative bodies of those sectors who will be directly involved in operating the deposit return scheme were invited to sit on the Implementation Advisory Group. Further detail on the Group can be found on the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/groups/deposit-return-scheme-implementation-advisory-group/ .

The Scottish Government has engaged with a broad range of stakeholders who will be involved in deposit return, including retailers that offer online sales. That engagement will continue as work to implement the scheme progresses, supported by the DRS Implementation Advisory Group.

It is the intention that all business acting as return points be reimbursed reasonable costs associated with the collection and storage of material captured through deposit return. The final structure of fees will be set out in due course as part of work on implementing the scheme.

Zero Waste Scotland are currently working with eight local authorities to assess the impact of deposit return on their waste collection services. Work with the remaining 24 local authorities is expected to follow. It is intended that the outputs from this work will be used to inform discussion about the provision of support for any future service planning and delivery by local authorities.

No local authorities have approached Zero Waste Scotland for support in implementing waste collection service changes as a result of the introduction of a deposit return scheme.