Decarbonisation of residual waste infrastructure: report

1 Introduction

1.1 Background to the Review

In November 2021, the Minister for Green skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity appointed Dr Colin Church^[1] to act as independent Chair of the Review of the role of incineration in the waste hierarchy in Scotland (‘the Review’). Dr Church delivered his First Report, Stop, Sort, Burn, Bury? in April 2022 and the Scottish Government published it in June 2022 ^[2].

Dr Church determined the scope and process for the Review within the overall remit^[3] and timescale set by the Minister. These included that the Review focused on an assessment of national capacity requirements and have scope to consider how emissions from existing incinerators can be reduced and residual heat may be reused; and consider the societal impacts of residual waste treatment, including health and community impacts. The Minister also requested that the Review was delivered as soon after the end of March as possible in order to take account of the need for Local Authorities to make arrangements for the ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste and consider planning applications as well as for the waste management industry to make investment decisions.

The Review set out to answer five key questions:

1. Given Scotland’s waste management ambitions and current progress towards these, what capacity is required to manage residual waste in Scotland?

2. What are the options for managing residual waste?

3. What are the economic, environmental and social trade-offs of those residual waste management options?

4. How do we decide where capacity should be located, and in what form?

5. What can be done to improve existing residual waste treatment facilities in terms of carbon performance and societal impacts?

To approach these questions, the Review considered existing evidence and commissioned additional capacity modelling, an appraisal of waste treatment options and a rapid review of evidence relating to the health impacts of incinerating waste since 2009, conducted by Public Health Scotland². Additionally, stakeholders were consulted on these topics through a Call for Evidence, which was launched in December 2021 and included both a written questionnaire and stakeholder events and meetings^[4]. Stakeholder responses to the Call for Evidence were summarised in an evidence document^[5].

The Review’s First Report^[6] was then published by the Scottish Government on 10 May 2022. This set out 12 recommendations regarding the first four questions of the review and two provisional recommendations regarding decarbonisation. Given the timescales, the Review had to prioritise the capacity analysis and consideration of the social, health and economic trade-offs for various waste management options.

The First Report’s recommendations on decarbonisation were:

Recommendation 12: The Scottish Government should report greenhouse gas emissions from incineration separately from other energy-related emissions as soon as possible, ideally from the 2021 data onwards.

Recommendation 13: The Scottish Government should immediately strengthen existing requirements for pre-treatment and work with local authorities and industry to apply them to all existing and future incineration facilities to remove as much recyclable material as feasible, with a particular focus on plastics.

Recommendation 14: The Scottish Government and local authorities should continue to work with industry to deploy combined heat and power for as many existing incineration facilities as possible.

Recommendations 13 and 14 were provisional in the First Report. In order to allow the Review to give appropriate consideration to the matter of decarbonising existing infrastructure, a further report was commissioned in May 2022.

Dr Church was supported in the Review by a secretariat consisting of individuals detached from the Scottish Government and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).

1.2 Review Publications

There are six main elements to the Review’s outputs:

1. Call for Evidence, December 2021^[7] – This invited stakeholders to provide comments on initial analysis from ClimateXChange (CXC) and evidence on a range of questions relating to the Review.

2. Review First Report, submitted April 2022 – This document outlines the key considerations of the review and the recommendations the Review is making.

3. Evidence Report, submitted April 2022 – This report summarises the evidence considered by the Review, including responses to the Call and further evidence.

4. Call for Evidence responses – As far as possible, the Review published in full the responses received to the Call. Further information on the publication of responses can be found within the evidence document.

5. Review Second Report (this document), submitted to Scottish Ministers in December 2022 – This outlines the recommendations on decarbonising residual waste infrastructure in Scotland.

6. Additional evidence, obtained for the Second Report, including both stakeholder contributions (published on Citizen Space^[4] where permitted by their providers) and the Eunomia modelling report.