Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill

Yes. By putting the strategy and its maintenance into law, this serves to ensure that future ministers continue to prioritise and resource this area of activity.

No

By definition, circular economy principles will help tackle climate change.

Decarbonising our economies is only one aspect, we also need to rethink the way make and consume products and this is where the circular economy is an essential building block.

However, the circular economy may in some instances conflict with national climate
change objectives:
- The growth of local repair services to extend the lifetime of devices may
increase national emissions, while decreasing indirect supply chain emissions
occurring in other countries; and
- The reuse and repair of products may increase emissions but reduce our use
and reliance on finite natural resources.

Therefore, a holistic approach is required to ensure circular economy principles always prevail.

Yes, targets set out the expectations going forward across society and ensure that priority and resourcing is made available, provided these can be measured.

No. The need to make different provision for different purposes or areas is acknowledged in the legislation.

Yes, this would be beneficial in principle. Disposal of unsold consumer goods makes no sense from an environmental, resource use, and waste management point of view. There should be regulations which ensure disposal of unsold consumer goods does not make financial sense. A good example is a French
regulation adopted in 2016. The pioneering law on fighting food waste meant supermarkets were forbidden to destroy unsold food products and were compelled to donate it to charities instead. Similar regulations should apply to non-food products.

The proposed legislation is inevitably broad in nature and does not currently specify how it would target specific categories of goods. As such specific measures would presumably be subject to further consultation to ensure their practicability and efficacy. It’s also necessary to ensure that where there is a requirement to redistribute unsold goods that there is capacity to absorb and reuse them. This might require further work to support and expand these networks, which are often provided by the Third Sector and as such can be financially vulnerable.

Yes. This would help make reusable items more financially attractive and would reduce litter and waste management costs.

As an organisation we’ve previously expressed concern that much of the activity in this space has focussed on single-use plastics, which fails to take account of the environmental impact of substitute materials or the impact of their continuing to be littered. What is actually required is behaviour change. In some cases, the implementation of charges is likely to help as it does make people think about their
behaviour. However, to maximise effectiveness it would be beneficial to accompany this with other targeted measures to normalise the behaviours. Carrying reusable carrier bags, water bottles or coffee cups have become much more normalised than was previously the case, but this is not really true for other activities such as carrying picnic cutlery to avoid disposables. It’s quite likely that some measures will ultimately be more successful than others in terms of public buy-in but the Scottish Government is encouraged to be open-minded in trying different approaches.

There is currently considerable concern around single use vapes. As well as the health concerns there are issues associated with littering and the hazards associated with disposal because the batteries can catch fire when crushed so these could be seen as a priority for action.

As above the Scottish Government is encouraged to take an open-minded approach regarding which items the legislation is used to target, not focus solely on plastics and combine any charges with behaviour change measures to support the normalisation of alternatives to disposables.

Yes. This has become a particular issue in recent years resulting from the growth of online marketplaces. There is a need to both raise awareness, as many people will not be aware of the risk of people operating illegally, and to have a legislative backstop to prevent people seeking to discharge their responsibilities.

Our enforcement staff have highlighted that there is already existing legislation to deal with household waste offences under section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act and have asked for clarification over whether it is proposed that enforcement should now only be taken under section.46.

We’d emphasise the need for the Scottish Government to carry out awareness raising activities to ensure that householders are aware of their responsibilities. The amount of £200 for the Fixed Penalty Notice may not be proportionate to the small amount of waste deposited by the householder but a written warning may not be sufficient and has been proven in many instances not to be seen as serious enforcement by the offender. In these circumstances, would it be acceptable to issue a littering FPN for the amount of £80?

Improved liaison with SEPA. Are resources available to SEPA that could also be utilised by or shared with local authorities to secure increased successful prosecutions? Increased authorisation would also be beneficial for local authority officers to access information from relevant databases such as valuation boards, Council Tax registers and Companies House to assist in identifying details of offenders. The National Littering and Fly-tipping Strategy is already being introduced and The Scottish Government has already implemented its Action Planfor 2030/23.

Yes

At the current time, all local authorities are signatories to the existing Code of Practice but are not always able to implement all aspects of it either due to their local circumstances or due to funding restrictions.

All local authorities are subject to such funding constraints and have to carefully balance the competing pressures across different services within their communities.

In our case, we are no longer able to offer a same day collection for all materials, as a direct result of the funding settlements from the Scottish Government. Moreover, in making the Code of Practice statutory, the Scottish Government must give due consideration to the particular practical barriers which might be faced by particularly rural or urban authorities.

Yes, we do support this in principle.

While supporting this measure in principle we nevertheless have concerns in relation to how it will be applied in relation to specifically very urban authorities like Edinburgh or very rural authorities. A standardised system of targets defined by types of authority (e.g. urban, rural, mixed) is not likely to take full account of the characteristics of individual authorities as even within the urban group used by Audit Scotland, there are significant variations e.g. in types of housing stock, which will impact on recycling performance.

In our case approximately 50% of our households are flats who have a communal bin service, and 50% of those are sited on the street as a result of historic building designs. This will make enforcement particularly challenging as this relies on being able to identify the specific household which is typically not possible.

Moreover, the decision over how to use services rests ultimately with each household. The Council cannot fully control that and should not be fined for these individual decisions. Arguably if the local authority is providing a good quality, reliable service compliant with the Code of Practice it should be viewed as having discharged its responsibility.

A more impactful way to achieve success would be to look at authorities which are failing to achieve their targets and consider what additional support could be provided. Given well documented pressure on local government finance we would encourage strong consideration be given to making financial support packages available to support improvement initiatives where these are needed.

Finally, the growth of third-party recycling services such as retail takeback and, from 2025, the implementation of the deposit return scheme means that the percentage of materials being captured through measurement of local authority recycling rates will reduce. Accordingly, the way these recycling rates are calculated needs to be reviewed. The Scottish Government could potentially look at other measures such as waste arisings per capita or carbon emissions per capita to give an alternative
view.

This is not straight-forward to answer because there are a number of legislative changes underway, including the deposit return scheme for specific drinks containers, and the extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging. These will impact on existing recycling performance in a number of ways, but they are not currently in place.

Paper and cardboard are the primary materials in mixed recycling bins, and with the growth of online deliveries, this is likely to stay the same (or increase). More could be done to ensure major retailers provide facilities for their collection, as some do voluntarily. The Government could also explore the development of reusable packaging systems, for example the service provided by re-zip.com, as well as support to encourage provision and uptake of refill shops and refill systems within supermarkets to reduce other types of packaging waste.

However, funding is a specific challenge. The Scottish Government, either itself or in partnership with the UK Government, could be using Producer Responsibility Legislation to target other materials such as textiles and small WEEE which are not a huge part of the waste stream but do have a disproportionate environmental impact. The current collection systems for the latter, in particular, are complicated to use and inadequate for people who do not have cars.

These are not materials that people tend to have all the time, so we’d like to see perhaps a producer funded scheme whereby you could phone and request an uplift when you need one- if this was designed to be a collection when it’s convenient for you, this could mean materials are not presented at the kerb, so don’t get wet, and could potentially allow for greater reuse.

As noted elsewhere there are particular concerns around disposable vapes, and, while a ban or restrictions on sale might be preferred, a comprehensive retail recycling network should also be considered.

Yes. This Council already issue Fixed Penalty Notices for littering from vehicles although we are aware that the Scottish Government is looking to introduce amended legislation to bolster existing powers under this CE Bill, and support this.

Littering from vehicles can be more costly to clean up as verges are often difficult to access safely. Fixed penalties could potentially be used to financially support clean-ups.

Currently, the onus is on the registered keeper of the vehicle to provide details of the person responsible for throwing litter from the vehicle (if the offender is not the identified registered keeper of the vehicle). If they fail to provide this information, the FPN is issued to the registered keeper as being the person responsible for the vehicle. If they fail to pay the FPN a report cannot be sent to the Procurator Fiscal
for consideration as it cannot be proven who the actual offender was. This results in no enforcement action ultimately being taken for the offence and demonstrates a waste of time and resource for local authority officers.

Yes, for significant waste crime.

It would assist Local Authority Officers if delegated powers were given that authorised a search of vehicles and the power to enter premises (not domestic dwellings).

Yes

No

The purposes of the Bill are primarily to reduce levels of consumption and to ensure that manufactured goods are less likely to become waste. In that sense the Bill would be expected to contribute.

At the local level the specific impact of the Bill might be less as the management of waste constitutes a relatively small part of the Council’s carbon footprint (and this Council doesn’t operate a commercial waste service). Nevertheless, the Bill is still important as our council is responsible for managing the household waste of around 10% of Scotland’s entire population, and making better choices around household waste is one of the easier things an individual citizen can do to impact their personal carbon footprint.

In addition, by the time a product enters the waste stream, the majority of the environmental impact will have already taken place in sourcing the raw materials, manufacture, and so on. Moving away from a consumerist society will have ripple effects on other sources of emissions beyond waste management. If it can lead to a reduction at source (less food/products manufactured because less is wasted and products are kept for longer), then it can reduce emissions from industry and agriculture for example and serveto reduce global emissions.

No comments

The opportunity to encourage the development of producer led collection systems for textiles and small electricals, with reuse where possible has been highlighted above.

We’ve previously highlighted the opportunity to consider a deposit type system for bulky items like mattresses, whereby the price includes takeback of the old mattress (with an opt-out if you don’t have a mattress to return).

There is scope to look at how Scotland can develop alterative models to owning goods, such as tool libraries, clothing rental, etc, and seek to grow and mainstream these.

It would be helpful if the Scottish Government could look again at the legislation surrounding managed student accommodation. These are currently classified as sui generis in planning terms, but as residential in terms of Valuation Boards and Council Tax, but no Council Tax would be payable as the residents are students. Therefore waste and recycling arisings are treated as domestic waste when in reality these are run for profit by the accommodation providers and even operate as hotels at certain
times of the year. While their presence is of course important to ensure that students have somewhere to stay, the growth in this sector in recent years has presented local authorities with large student populations with a significant unfunded pressure. While we do accept that these premises are partly residential and can be seen to take pressure off the wider housing stock available to permanent residents, nevertheless the fact that nothing at all is paid directly to support local services by profit-making companies is problematic and needs to be reviewed.

Our response to the previous consultations noted that caution needs to be taken in comparing different nations, even within the UK, particularly in relation to recycling rates.

This was referenced with regard to Wales who report higher recycling rates than the rest of the UK because they use a different metric to calculate it.

No comments