Stop, Sort, Burn, Bury - incineration in the waste hierarchy: independent review

6 Location

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

The Review's analysis indicates that the currently planned incineration capacity in Scotland is sufficient for managing current and projected residual waste at a national level. However, it is clear that the location of that capacity has emerged in an unstructured manner, with some areas being better served than others. This is particularly problematic for some of the more remote or rural areas of Scotland, including islands, though for example the Shetlands have been able to address this successfully with the Lerwick heat plant (see Figure , generated for the Review by Scottish Government).

The Scottish Government will need to work with local authorities in these areas to explore options to manage their residual waste. If no better option is available that might, if fully justified, lead to the creation of a small amount of additional capacity. This work will need to recognise the potentially greater residual waste management costs faced in remote and rural areas.

Recommendation 10 Scottish Government should urgently work with local authorities in remote and rural areas of Scotland without a settled residual waste management solution to meet the Ban to explore options that might, if fully justified, lead to the creation of a small amount of additional capacity.

Notwithstanding the current capacity situation, over time, existing residual waste infrastructure will need to be replaced to some reducing extent as it reaches end of life. In addition, if Scotland is to meet its wider resource and waste management targets, other infrastructure will need to be developed. It would be unfortunate if the same unstructured approach were allowed to recreate similar issues in the future. This is particularly true because of the complex, interdependent nature of resource and waste management, which emphasises the importance of treating it as a whole system. The Review therefore recommends that the Scottish Government and local authorities should work with industry to develop a strategic approach to planning and deploying waste collection, reprocessing and management facilities by the end of 2023, which takes account of the issues set out below.

Recommendation 11 Scottish Government and local authorities should work with industry to develop a strategic approach to planning and deploying waste collection, reprocessing and management facilities by the end of 2023, which takes account of the key issues. The Scottish Government should consider how best to incorporate this into the proposed fourth National Planning Framework.

Stakeholders proposed a range of criteria that could be used to decide where to place residual waste capacity going forward. Drawing on that, the Review suggests that the following should be considered as key issues in developing the strategic approach in Recommendation 11:

• Proper appreciation of resource and waste management as a complex and interdependent system.

• Application of the proximity principle (that waste should generally be managed as near as possible to its place of production) at a sub-national level.
• Consideration of access to low-carbon transport, especially where longer distances are involved.
• Opportunities for synergy with other activities. For incineration, this should prioritise access to heat offtake and, in due course, carbon dioxide offtake options.
• Local environmental and social impacts.
• Wider environmental impacts, such as the carbon and other benefits from recycling to avoid virgin raw material production.

This approach could also be applied in co-operation with local authorities and industry to determine which of the pipeline facilities would be best to build and which might be deprioritised in the light of the overcapacity predicted in Section 3.