Circular economy and waste route map to 2030: business and regulatory impact assessment

Route Map: Overall Costs and Benefits

182. Publication of the Route Map by itself will not place additional financial costs or burdens on local authorities and enforcement bodies in Scotland, nor change the existing cost of waste and its environmental externalities currently borne by public bodies, businesses and communities. However, implementing the interventions as planned will generate costs and benefits , as outlined above.

183. This BRIA has aimed to discuss the potential type and scale of costs and benefits that will be considered as interventions are developed. Costs are used to give examples and suggestion of scale but must be subject to change as policy development moves forward. While these cannot be robustly determined at this stage, they will be assessed as appropriate for individual interventions in specific impact assessments, and this has been highlighted for measures throughout this document.

184. Overall, society may benefit from a reduction in the volume of waste generated through preventative measures, such as an overall reduction in consumption of resources, and from more effective and efficient waste management processes. This may support a shift in how we treat and manage materials, for example consideration of the available markets and reprocessing capacity for collected materials, and opportunities to facilitate this, to maximise higher value return from reprocessing routes and keeping materials in use. This should improve local environments and neighbourhoods and reduce the negative environmental impacts of waste entering the terrestrial and marine environments.

185. There are likely to be economic benefits in terms of job creation, skills development and retraining as the CEWRM drives investment to meet circular economy objectives.

186. Costs associated with the introduction of measures may include additional enforcement costs for public bodies, administrative costs for businesses and infrastructure and operational costs of amending services or ensuring compliance across public and private sectors.