Packaging - extended producer responsibility: island communities impact assessment

Data and Stakeholders

Methodology

41. The Scottish Government published an initial Island Communities Screening Assessment in March 2021 to accompany the UK-wide consultation on packaging EPR. ^[28]

42. The screening assessment identified several potentially significant impacts on islands communities which were to be reassessed when more policy detail was available. These were:

• Changes to funding for household and household-like packaging waste management will need to take into account the higher cost of services for islands;
• Storing and transporting collected waste and recycling off-island may impact transport links;
• Recognition of the requirement for Gaelic communications materials.

43. Since the publication of the screening assessment, two engagement sessions have taken place with island communities stakeholders, including local authorities with responsibilities to island communities, and businesses (and representatives of businesses) who will be affected by the regulations. This comprised an hour-long facilitated session which included a recap of the policy’s obligations and discussion of the impacts on island communities, identification of new impacts and gathering new evidence. Four Local authorities attended the first workshop and three for the second.

44. Positive and negative impacts were identified in these events that are out of scope of the Impact Assessment. These fall into two categories:

1) Issues where the effect on island communities was not significantly different from that on non-island communities; and

2) Issues which require monitoring of the impacts post-implementation of packaging EPR.

45. The Scottish Government and other UK governments published their joint government response to the packaging EPR consultation in March 2022.^[29] This document set out the intended scheme design for packaging EPR. Potential impacts on island communities were reassessed on this basis and appropriate engagement with island stakeholders took place on 5 December 2022. The output from the assessment and engagement has been included in this Island Communities Impact Assessment.

46. It is recognised that some impacts may not affect island communities disproportionately, but islands may require specific solutions as part of scheme implementation that do differ from the mainland.

Island Impacts and Mitigation Measures

47. This section describes the impacts identified through the engagement events as having significantly different effects on island communities, either because the impact is unique or because the scale of the impact is significantly larger.

48. The impacts identified were:

1) The higher costs of providing recycling and waste services to island communities will need to be fully accounted for within the disposal cost calculation process;

2) The storage and transportation of packaging recycling and waste off-island may require additional transport capacity;

3) Recognition of the need for Gaelic-language materials.