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Proposal 1 - Duties on public bodies and businesses to provide recycling facilities
Proposal
To further encourage recycling by giving a power to the Scottish Government to make regulations which would impose duties on public sector bodies and businesses to provide recycling facilities for customers, staff and, where appropriate, members of the public. The regulations would specify which bodies and businesses were to be subject to this duty and the nature of the recycling facilities that would be required.
Background
In recent years, local authorities have improved recycling and composting facilities for householders. Over 80% of households in Scotland regularly participate in recycling to some degree. The Scottish recycling/composting rate for household waste is now over 30%.
As householders are given the opportunity to recycle at home, they also wish to recycle when they are at work or carrying out other business. Many employers already provide recycling facilities for their staff. As the cost of landfill increases (because of higher Landfill Tax and higher standards at landfill sites) it is likely that more such facilities will be provided. Waste Aware Scotland ( www.wasteawarebusiness.org.uk) run a recycling directory for business and outlines available services.
Outwith work, recycling facilities can be found in a variety of places such as at airports, on the street and at retailers. Retailers can take steps to meet their obligations under the Packaging Regulations (requiring the recovery of a proportion of the packaging put on the market) by installing recycling facilities at their stores.
How the proposal would work
Power would be taken to allow the Scottish Ministers to make regulations. These regulations could:
- require businesses and public sector bodies with units over a certain size to provide recycling facilities (a rolling implementation period would allow time for recycling contractors to respond to the demand);
- set out the types of businesses and the types of sites covered by the duty (e.g. retailers, shopping centres, airports, beaches, car parks, cinemas, entertainment sites, parks, road lay-bys, sports stadia, visitor attraction and Government buildings);
- make provisions for any exemptions relating to certain categories of business (eg there might need to be an exemption for railway stations, given security concerns about recycling bins in stations);
- specify which materials should be collected and whether facilities should be made available including, for example, any facilities that might be required to remove excess packaging in larger stores;
- require the owners and occupiers of the premises covered by the duty to make arrangements for the materials in the recycling facilities to be collected and transported for recycling or re-use;
- Require the owners and occupiers to keep records on the facilities provided, the amounts collected and where material to be recycled was sent;
- Lay down appropriate penalties or civil sanctions for non-compliance. The regulations would need to be enforced, probably by local authorities. We might also need to consider if it is necessary to amend existing powers for local authorities to collect commercial waste to ensure that they can act as collector of last resort and have the power to charge for this, if private or community sector recycling firms should be unavailable; and
- In addition, give local authorities powers to require recycling facilities to be provided in certain locations in private ownership in their areas which regularly attract large numbers of the public, for example, at sports, recreational or entertainment facilities or events.
Alternatives
There are potential alternatives to legislation in this area.
One alternative is a voluntary Code of Practice on recycling outwith the home. This could provide guidance on setting up recycling systems and providing information to the public on how to use them. Businesses and public bodies could also be invited to show their support for the Code and provide recycling facilities for their employees and for the public.
Another possibility is to limit mandatory recycling facilities to certain materials at certain places (this would be quite feasible using the powers proposed above so it is not strictly speaking an alternative). For example, California and New York are requiring large retailers to have recycling facilities for plastic bags (many Scottish retailers already provide such facilities).
Questions
Consultees are asked:
1. Do you consider that legislation should be made in this area?
2. If so, what form should that legislation take?
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