Climate change delivery plan: meeting Scotland's statutory climate change targets

CHAPTER 7: WASTE

Key messages

• Emissions from waste have to be reduced in 2020 by 1.0 MtCO ₂e against 2006 levels.
• Targets for reducing waste sent to landfill are set in part by EU legislation.
• Scotland has met the EU 2010 target on biodegradable municipal waste: subsequent targets will be challenging.
• Scotland has existing detailed targets on municipal waste prevention and recycling.
• More work is required to obtain better data on the amount of commercial waste and its composition.

Background

7.1 In the absence of further interventions, emissions from waste are expected to reduce by at least 10%, from about 2.5 MtCO ₂e in 2006 to about 2.2 MtCO ₂e in 2020.

7.2 Key waste policies are driven in part by EU targets on reducing the amount of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill.

7.3 The UK Government Landfill Tax is a key driver for reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill. Other key drivers include funding, voluntary agreements with industry and producer responsibility legislation.

Meeting Scotland's 2020 and 2050 targets

7.4 Reducing the amount of commercial waste sent to landfill will be achieved through the Landfill Tax, producer responsibility legislation, voluntary agreements with industry and the provision of advice on resource efficiency and waste prevention.

7.5 Continued reductions in the amount of household waste sent to landfill will be achieved through more waste prevention work (eg on food waste); through more recycling and through infrastructure to treat residual waste. The use of anaerobic digestion to reduce food waste to landfill provides one opportunity which needs to be developed further in Scotland.

7.6 The UK Committee on Climate Change suggested provisional figures of a 0.7 MtCO ₂e saving from the waste sector in Scotland by 2020. These figures were calculated before it was announced as part of the UK Government Budget that the standard rate of Landfill Tax would continue to increase up to 2013. So, a higher saving is a clear possibility.

The main delivery mechanisms

7.7 Reducing landfill requires one or more of a range of measures including: fiscal, e.g. landfill tax; awareness, e.g. ensuring that businesses and householders have good information on recycling services; ensuring that energy is produced from waste efficiently; and using public procurement to drive waste management outcomes, e.g. using recycled material.

7.8 Work is ongoing to explore the practicalities of landfill bans; the project reports later in autumn 2009.

7.9 Provisions in the waste chapter of the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill could promote waste prevention and re-use,
as well as improving separate collection of waste and thus making recycling easier. All of these would improve use of resources and reduce Scotland's carbon impacts.

7.10 Table 2 in Chapter 2 sets out the milestones, challenges, and actions in the short, medium and long term in this sector and Table 8 below identifies the measures needed to meet the targets in 2020.

National Conversation

7.11 Targets for reducing waste sent to landfill are set in part by EU legislation. The ability of Scotland to negotiate in the EU is likely to increase Scotland's influence over the overarching policy and delivery framework.

7.12 Taxation has a fundamental influence on waste decisions. Greater flexibility to define a fiscal regime for Scotland would help align taxation regimes with Scotland's economic and environmental priorities - for example, landfill tax and the aggregates levy are currently set at UK level.

7.13 Other areas where additional powers for Scotland could help to contribute to meeting climate change targets are the regulations covering excess packaging, to enable a more aggressive focus on packaging reduction, and the regulation of waste exports.

Table 8: Delivery Plan for the Waste Sector