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Proposal 4: Waste Prevention Plans
Proposal
To encourage waste prevention and recycling by taking powers to enable the Scottish Government to place a duty on public bodies and businesses to have waste prevention plans.
Background
Up until now, the focus of Government attention has been on municipal (mainly household) waste. However, this only makes up around 3.5 million tonnes of Scotland's waste. Scotland generates over 20 million tonnes of waste a year, with the vast majority of this waste coming from the commercial and industrial sectors.
There are already steps in place to reduce the amount of commercial and industrial waste that is produced. Envirowise Scotland ( www.envirowise.gov.uk/scotland) provides advice to business on cleaner design, reducing the unnecessary use of raw materials and waste prevention. Envirowise have also been promoting Site Waste Management Plans on a voluntary basis and paragraph 52 of Scottish Planning Policy 10 on waste management ( www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/08/11100231/0) also encourages their use. A Site Waste Management Plan records the amount and type of waste produced on a construction site and how it will be reused, recycled or disposed.
Taking action on waste prevention has an environmental benefit and also reduces costs to business and so helps the bottom line. The Landfill Tax also acts as an incentive to reduce the amount of waste produced and reduce the amount sent to landfill. The Scottish Government is also working with public bodies to improve environmental performance.
The Scottish Government recognises the need to put its own house in order. We have taken steps to reduce our own waste by, for example, encouraging staff not to print material unnecessarily; installing double-sided printers and providing information to staff, through Waste Aware Scotland, on minimising food waste (e.g. by not over-ordering at meetings).
How the proposal would work
The Scottish Ministers would be given the power through regulations to require public sector bodies (including the Scottish Government itself, non-Departmental Public Bodies, Local Authorities and the NHS) and businesses operating in Scotland to have waste prevention plans.
The regulations would:
- Identify which public bodies and businesses would be covered and the circumstances in which plans must be prepared (including potential exemptions for small public bodies and business);
- Outline the specified content of the plan, including any provisions on the design of buildings and the letting of contracts which could drive cleaner design, waste prevention and sustainable waste management; and
- Outline how the requirement is to be enforced, including the powers given to enforcement authorities, a possible duty to make plans publicly available and civil sanctions or penalties for non compliance.
Alternative
The alternative would be to continue action in these areas on a non-statutory basis.
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?
3. What public bodies and businesses should be covered?
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