Draft Scottish Waste Regulations Passed

On Wednesday the 9th May 2012 the Scottish Parliament passed regulations that will require businesses to separate paper, card, plastic, glass, metals and food waste, if more than 5kg waste is generated weekly for collection.

Local authorities will be required to provide separate household kerbside collections for groups of materials (with food collections everywhere except rural areas), unless satisfied that their quantities and quality are acceptable using existing methods. More details are set to be released in June as part of the consultation document.

Zero Waste Scotland will invest £8m in local authorities and commercial waste management companies, including £5m to develop food waste collections and £750,000 to help develop SME collection services. As a result the Scottish government hopes to achieve 70% recycling by 2025.

The draft regulations also propose restrictions on feedstocks for EfW facilities to avoid the management of waste materials at inappropriate levels of the waste hierarchy, banning biodegradable waste completely from landfill by 2020 and removing ferrous metals and hard plastics from waste streams prior to thermal treatment or incineration.

The draft regulations are available view online here.

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