Litter and flytipping strategy: strategic environment assessment - post adoption statement

8 Consultation on the SEA

8.1 Screening and Scoping

Consultation was first undertaken with the statutory consultees (Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), NatureScot and Historic Environment Scotland), on the proposed scope of SEA for a 5-week consultation ending on 20^th October 2021. Each statutory consultee was provided with the SEA Screening and Scoping Report issued by the Scottish Government and comments invited. Consultation responses were received from all three statutory consultees to determine the final scope of the Environmental Report and assessments. The comments received from statutory consultees on the SEA Screening and Scoping Report were included in an Appendix to the Environmental Report,^[24] which also identifies how the comments were addressed for the SEA.

8.2 Environmental Report

The Environmental Report was published to accompany the public consultation documentation on the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy, from 13^th December 2021 to 31^st March 2022.^[25]

To direct consultee responses, the Environmental Report included the following question (Q33):

(a) Do you agree with the recommendations and conclusions within the Strategic Environmental Assessment Environmental Report? Yes / No / Do not know

(b) If not, please provide detail and evidence

Of the 978 respondents to the public consultation, 828 (85%) responded to this question, of which 760 individuals and 68 organisations provided a response. These included responses from local authorities (17 in total; 25% of responses from organisations), industry trade associations/federations, (9 in total; 13% of responses from organisations), statutory, public, or government funded bodies (4 in total; 6% of responses from organisations), voluntary, charity, community organisations (32 in total; 47% of responses from organisations), waste and/or recycling firms (3 in total; 4% of responses from organisations), other that could not be categorised (3 in total (including 2 landowners); 4% of responses from organisations).

8.2.1 Statutory consultees

Statutory consultees were included in the consultation on the Environmental Report to accompany the proposed National Litter and Flytipping Strategy.

Consultation responses were received from one^[26] of the three statutory consultees, Historic Environment Scotland, who provided the following response:

Historic Environment Scotland At scoping, you proposed to scope the historic environment out of the assessment, as you considered significant effects on the historic environment were unlikely and consideration of the amenity of heritage assets is included under "landscape and visual impacts and human health". We are content with this approach, and consequently have no comments to make on the Environmental Report.

8.3 Public consultees responses

The key findings from the analysis of the public consultation to the question regarding the SEA Environmental Report are as follows.

Of the 828 respondents that responded to this question 39% confirmed agreement with the recommendations and conclusions within the Environmental Report. A total of 6% of the respondents did not agree. The remainder of respondents answered "Maybe" in response to the question.

The main opportunities identified by respondents are summarised as follows:

• That implementation of the actions represents an opportunity to reduce the environmental impacts of litter and flytipping.
• That the key overarching themes: Behaviour Change, Services and Infrastructure, and Enforcement, should provide a good basis for addressing issues with litter and flytipping.
• That improvements to services and infrastructure would have a positive impact on preventing litter and flytipping.
• That awareness of the impact of litter on the environment can be raised.
• That litter can be considered to be a resource, supporting the adoption of a circular economy approach.

The main risks of concern which could jeopardise the success of the actions to prevent litter and flytipping, are:

• That a lack of detail, ambition and defined targets may limit the success of measures to reduce incidents of litter and flytipping and impacts on the environment.
• That the effectiveness of measures to improve services and infrastructure for managing litter and flytipping will be inhibited by a lack of funding.
• That a generalised, one-size-fits-all approach may not be effective at addressing the environmental impacts of litter and flytipping, particularly for rural areas.
• That too much focus on actions relating to behaviour change and data collection will divert attention away from measures that are more effective at preventing litter and flytipping.

The main recommendations proposed by respondents include:

• That actions to prevent litter and flytipping should include quantifiable measures to assess effectiveness, identify responsibilities and include definite timescales for implementation.
• That existing research should be considered and incorporated into information and data gathering measures.
• That the impact of the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme should be evaluated before implementing measures to prevent litter and flytipping.
• That specific measures should be developed to target the behaviour of people that litter or flytip, with suggestions related to litter generated by users of fast-food outlets, rebates for recyclable materials and stricter enforcement penalties.
• That additional investment is needed to support accessibility to waste management services amenities to reduce incidents of littering and flytipping, and additional human resource is needed to identify and prevent incidents of litter and flytipping.

8.3.1 Responding to the Consultation

The high number of responses to the consultation is welcomed by the Scottish Government. It is evident that National Litter and Flytipping Strategy has attracted considerable public interest and that overall, the majority of respondents appear to view measures to improve the prevention of litter and flytipping in Scotland as an opportunity to achieve positive outcomes for Scotland's environment.

Much of the feedback relates to the implementation of the actions, which is the next stage after publication of the strategy and action plan. Recognising the importance of this next stage, a robust governance process is being established, involving key stakeholders, and the action plan will be reviewed on an annual basis. We have integrated new actions to reflect areas of feedback received in the consultation process and in stakeholder engagement sessions.

8.4 Reasons for choosing preferred options in light of reasonable alternatives

The adopted approach for preventing litter and flytipping reflects the evidence gathered, the assessments undertaken and the consultation findings. The outcome has shown that the proposed actions on littering and flytipping can provide positive outcomes for Scotland.

8.5 Reasons for choosing the preferred options to prevent litter and flytipping as detailed in the SEA Consultation

The final actions to be adopted in the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy have been developed to balance environmental benefits with commercial viability and technical practicalities, along with considering the views of consultees.

The strategy identifies a suite of measures to prevent litter and flytipping and therefore reduce impacts on the environment, structured according to the overarching themes for action: Behaviour Change, Services and Infrastructure, and Enforcement (with Data and Evidence considered to be a crosscutting aspect underpinning these three themes).

There is a need to build on the learnings from the last Strategy, Towards A Litter-Free Scotland, fully embedding a focus on prevention but recognising the need to distinguish between litter and flytipping.

This strategy and initial action plan have been shaped by the consultation process and stakeholder engagement to date. It is intended to be a stakeholder-led strategy, drawing on the knowledge, skills and resources across the diverse range of stakeholders who influence both the products which are littered or flytipped and individual behaviour at the point of disposal.

The annual review of the action plan will ensure this is consistently addressing the priorities in aligning incentives to ensure a product is disposed of legally and in a way which maximises the value of that product or the materials within it.

8.6 Reasons for the rejection of reasonable alternatives

The 2005 Act requires that the likely significant environmental effects associated with reasonable alternatives to the plan or programme to be adopted (in this case, the proposed actions on littering and flytipping) are assessed as part of the SEA process. Within the context of SEA, reasonable alternatives are defined in reference to the objectives and geographic scope of the plan or programme.

Reasonable alternatives were considered as part of a review of the existing National Litter Strategy^[27] completed in November 2019. The review identified areas of success of the strategy, good practice case studies and initial views of what the focus could be for future strategy development. The review process considered the following with respect to reasonable alternatives.

• Do-nothing alternative: Continuation of the existing National Litter Strategy was not considered a viable option, i.e. a 'Do Nothing' scenario. Feedback from the review steering group noted that the policy landscape within which the strategy operates had altered significantly since its original publication in 2014. There was a consensus that a light touch revision would not therefore be sufficient and review participants supported a more substantive review and refresh to tackle litter and flytipping.
• Scope of the new strategy: The existing National Litter Strategy included messages on flytipping, however, a decision was made to update the strategy as a new National Litter and Flytipping Strategy. This approach, reflecting feedback from stakeholders, recognised that whilst they are interrelated, they are separate issues with different drivers, and the distinction allowed a tailored approach to be taken to each of them. Whilst an alternative could be to retain the existing strategy emphasis, it is not considered reasonable to do so, given stakeholders responses. Another alternative could be to develop separate strategies; however, as such an approach limits the opportunity for integration and synergies and diminishes the value of the resultant strategies, it was not considered a viable alternative in this instance.

The inclusion of quantifiable targets for the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy was also considered for measures to prevent litter and flytipping but given that the strategy includes proposals that identify the need to improve data and understanding of current sources, levels and composition of litter and flytipping, it was decided that including such targets at this stage was not appropriate but should be an area for future development.