Key Scottish Environment Statistics 2013

Waste & Recycling - Footnotes

1) Waste hierarchy (SEPA).

2) The total to landfill from all sources. Total waste sent to landfill is for calendar years.

3) The definition of municipal waste has changed slightly over the time period in which these data have been collected. The current definition of municipal waste is household and similar waste.

4) Local authority collected municipal waste is all waste for which the councils make arrangements, with the exclusion of: abandoned vehicles; road maintenance waste; commercial waste that is delivered to local authority owned or run landfill sites where the local authority has no part in the collection or disposal arrangements that have led to this delivery; industrial waste collected from industrial premises and taken for disposal or treatment separately from any other waste; and construction and demolition waste that is collected and taken for disposal or treatment separately from any other waste. Bricks and rubble taken to civic amenity sites are included in municipal waste.

5) The LACBMW data for 2001-2011 are for financial years. To calculate the LACBMW in the years before 2003/2004, it has been assumed that 63% of the waste landfilled was biodegradable. A mass balance calculation, assuming 63% of waste arisings are biodegradable, has been used to provide the data from 2003/2004 onwards. Landfill Allowance Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2005.

6) The Landfill (Scheme Year and Maximum Landfill Amount) Regulations 2004. During 2010, revised targets for the reduction of landfilling of LACBMW were agreed between the UK and the European Commission, based upon a change in scope of the definition of municipal waste. This revised definition now extends beyond waste managed by local authorities and now includes waste from businesses that is similar in nature and composition to waste from households. As a result, Scotland's share of the UK's Landfill Directive 2010, 2013 and 2020 targets has been revised to 2.7, 1.8 and 1.26 million tonnes of biodegradable municipal waste respectively. In the meantime, the targets set for Scotland in the 2004 regulations, for waste collected by or on behalf of local authorities, remain.

7) Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the landfill of waste.

8) National Waste Plan (2003).

9) Scottish Government News Release 2008 "New vision for waste".

10) Zero Waste Plan (2010).

11) Number surveyed in 2011: 10,777.

12) The survey method changed from a survey of adults to a survey of households from the second quarter of 2003. The 2003 data used are from quarters 2,3 and 4 only.

13 From 2007 to 2011, this question was asked of three quarters of the sample. Previously, it was asked of all households. In previous years the question asked whether or not the household recycled each of four items (yes or no). In 2007, this was changed to how much (all/most/some/none) was recycled. The table shows those reporting recycling, 'all' 'most' or 'some' of each item. In 2007, there was also a change to some of the item names: 'glass bottles' became 'glass bottles and jars', and 'plastic' became 'plastic bottles'.

14) The Scottish Household Survey is a continuous cross-sectional survey based on a sample of the population in private residences in Scotland.

15) In 2012, the Scottish Household Survey question on recycling was replaced with a question on how households dispose of food waste. This question was asked of a third of the sample - 3,461 in 2012.