Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-02442

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to help facilitate joint discussions between local authorities and industry regarding recycling and materials recovery.

Scottish Government and Zero Waste Scotland have ongoing engagement with local authorities, individually and collectively, as well as with private companies & industry associations. For example, our Waste Sector Forum, which meets monthly, includes representatives from COSLA, the local authority waste management officers network, SEPA, and waste sector and third sector trade bodies. Other examples of engagement include:

A workshop on addressing contamination of recyclate.
Provision of an online platform to match availability and demand for resource during the early stages of the Covid pandemic across local authorities and private companies.
Workshops to gather input from local authorities and material recovery facility operators to support the review of the Household Recycling Charter Code of Practice.
Support to local authorities and private companies to adapt recycling facilities to allow operation whilst meeting Covid restrictions.
Support for local authority collaborative procurement of a glass reprocessing contract.

Question reference: S6W-02440

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of any improvements identified in capturing commercial and industrial waste data since 2016.

In 2016, SEPA developed and implemented an automated tool to capture and summarise commercial and industrial waste data from data returns. This automation reduces errors and allows revision of historical data to account for resubmissions of data more easily.

We are working with SEPA and other governments and regulators in the UK to develop and implement an electronic waste tracking system. This will provide a step change in the quality and timeliness of waste data. A joint consultation on the implementation of a mandatory electronic waste tracking system is planned for autumn on behalf of all four nations of the UK.

Question reference: S6W-02455

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its progress towards the 2025 food waste reduction target, including a tonnage breakdown for food waste (a) arisings, (b) incinerated/landfilled and (c) prevented and, if it is not possible to provide such figures, by what date the data will be available.

A full update on progress towards our target of a 33% reduction in food waste by 2025 will be provided in the upcoming review of Scotland’s Food Waste Reduction Action Plan. A detailed analysis on the composition of residual waste is currently being undertaken and will form part of this review, due in Spring 2022.

In addition, we are developing a Routemap to deliver our ambitious 2025 waste and recycling targets which will inform the development of the new Circular Economy Bill. There will also be further engagement and consultation to shape the Bill’s contents.

Question reference: S6W-02441

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) baseline material input standards have been established for material recovery facilities (MRFs) and (b) improvement in output quality from MRFs has been delivered since 2016.

This information is publically available through the SEPA Recyclate Quality Reporting Tool, which can be accessed here: https://informatics.sepa.org.uk/RecyclateQuality/

The tool presents data from samples taken from material streams entering and exiting material recovery facilities (MFRs). The tool reports the percentage of materials collected that are considered to be ‘target’ materials for recycling.

Question reference: S6W-02443

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what modelling work it has undertaken on any requirement for residual waste treatment capacity in Scotland, and whether it will provide a breakdown of any forecasts since 2016 for such requirements.

In April 2019, we published the Waste Markets Study which assessed the treatment options for Scottish biodegradable municipal waste. The study is available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/waste-markets-study-full-report/

We have also commissioned work to assess the residual waste treatment capacity needs up to 2025, in light of our commitment to end the practice of landfilling biodegradable municipal waste by 2025. This work is ongoing and we will publish it in due course.

Question reference: S6W-02447

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-01877 by Michael Matheson on 20 August 2021, whether it will provide a breakdown of what proportion of household plastic waste has been recycled in Scotland in each year since 2014.

Question reference: S6W-02434

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when it first made plans for a new round of household waste compositional analysis, following the 2013-15 programme, and how (a) much money and (b) many staffing hours it allocated to this.

Scotland’s Waste Data Strategy board keeps Scotland’s evidence requirements for waste and materials under constant review.

Previous analyses of the composition of household municipal waste were undertaken in 2009 and 2014-15. Zero Waste Scotland had planned to undertake a further analysis in 2020, however, this was delayed due to Covid-19. Work to develop local authority projects restarted in July 2021 and waste sampling and analysis is planned to start in October 2021.

Zero Waste Scotland has forecast costs of £155,000 in 2021-22. The staff resource allocation for this project is not recorded to this level of detail.

Question reference: S6W-02461

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on food waste prevention and reduction programmes since 2013.

Since 2016 - which is when a specific food waste support programme came in - up to April 2021, approx. £1.23 million has been spent.

Table 1 also provides a breakdown of Scottish Government’s advertising spend targeted at food waste prevention and reduction since 2013.

Table 1. Scottish Government food waste advertising spend
Year	Campaign	Advertising spend
2013-14	Eat In Season	£79,903.03
2013-14	Food Waste	£573,102.70
2014-15	Food Provenance	£80,049.11
2015-16	Greener Scotland	£53,042.18
2016-17	Greener Scotland	£103,742.55
2017-18	Greener Scotland	£88,893.75
2018-19	Greener Scotland	£217,737.81
2018-19	Food waste	£303,516.65
2019-2020	Food waste	£53,042.18
TOTAL		£1,553,029.96

A breakdown of Zero Waste Scotland’s spend on advertising and outreach activities to promote food waste reduction for 2019-20 and during 2020-21 (to date) and the outcomes of these are set out in Table 2. This forms part of the overall approx. £1.23 million spend mentioned above.

Table 2. Zero Waste Scotland advertising spend and outcomes
Year	Advertising spend	Outreach spend	Pieces of PR coverage	Increase in social media following	Training delivered on 'Love Food Hate Waste'
2019-20	£193,000	£76,000	437	17,000	1269 individuals
2020-21 (to date)	£105,000	£20,000	137	13,000	166 individuals
TOTAL	£298,000	£96,000

Question reference: S6W-02460

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-32196 by Roseanna Cunningham on 30 September 2020, whether it will provide updated figures on Zero Waste Scotland audits for 2019-20, regarding (a) reductions in (i) food waste and (ii) CO2 emissions and (b) monetary savings.

Question reference: S6W-02459

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of relevant businesses (a) has access to and (b) participates in separate food waste collections.

Year	Food waste reduction (tonnes)	Food waste CO2	Food waste cost	Food: raw material (tonnes)	Food: raw material CO2	Food: raw material cost
2019-20	968	2944tCO2e	£228,516	636	1547tCO2e	£259,446