Chamber
Meeting of the Parliament 15 September 2011
15 Sep 2011 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament
Item of business
Waste Management
The Scottish Government’s zero waste plan was intended to lead to waste disposal being regulated in
“a better, more consistent way”,
and to help clarify the existing waste management regulations, which were described as
“complicated and difficult to understand.”
The targets that are laid out in the zero waste plan are ambitious, and such ambition should be lauded, but we must ensure that, in the rush to meet the targets, we do not sacrifice long-term benefits for short-term gains.
The introduction to the zero waste plan states that it is underpinned by a determination to make
“best practical use of the approach in the waste management hierarchy: waste prevention, reuse, recycling and recovery.”
There are currently 20 proposals for waste incinerators in Scotland, many of which do not meet those criteria. For example, pyrolysis incinerators burn waste at high temperatures to extract energy from waste. That is one of the two least-favoured options in the waste hierarchy, as it undermines efforts to reduce, recycle, and reuse.
The zero waste plan states that, by 2025, no more than 25 per cent of municipal waste should be used for energy from waste, with the remaining 75 per cent recycled. In January 2010, Audit Scotland reported that councils were highly unlikely to meet the target and noted that, to have any chance of meeting it, councils would require additional composting and recycling centres—so, not more waste incinerators. However, Government reporters who were reviewing a recent case contradicted that by stating that an incinerator was “urgently” needed to work towards zero waste targets. That leaves us in something of a quandary, because the more incinerators we build, the less likely we are to meet our recycling targets.
The inconsistencies do not end there. According to the zero waste plan, waste management developments
“should be located in sites where potential impacts on the human, built and natural environment can be minimised.”
However, in certain recent cases, seemingly legitimate concerns about the potential impact of the development on the human, built and natural environment have been dismissed.
Finally, and perhaps more pertinently in this debate, the zero waste plan states:
“Members of the public and community groups have an important role in the planning system and are encouraged to get involved in the development planning process and planning applications.”
In the past two years, local people have united in opposition to proposals to build incinerators in their areas. The groups have involved themselves from the start of the planning process and, where they have thought that they have been excluded, they have made great efforts to ensure that their voices are heard. Thousands of objections that have been lodged against waste management planning applications and many thoughtful and reasoned arguments that have been offered in support of those objections have effectively been discounted. The final recourse in such cases is to instigate costly legal proceedings.
That brings us to the equivocal position that the Scottish Government and Scottish National Party MSPs occupy. Although the Government is on record as being opposed to large-scale and inefficient energy-from-waste facilities, that did not prevent it from appointing reporters to review a local council’s decision to refuse planning permission for a pyrolysis plant, despite the fact that the Government retains complete discretion over which appeals it chooses to delegate. Some local SNP MSPs who were seeking re-election were vocal in their condemnation of local planning decisions about waste management facilities, only for post-electoral changes in their professional circumstances to cause them to become a great deal more circumspect. Rather than calling for Government interventions, they have ceded responsibility and neglected to represent their constituents.
The zero waste management policy was designed to iron out inconsistencies and contradictions in the current planning regulations, to make the process more transparent, to give local communities a voice and to ensure that waste management targets are met in the most efficient and environmentally friendly ways possible. It has not achieved those things. We need more than effective waste reduction targets; we need a realistic programme to achieve those targets and we need clear and concise planning regulations across local and national government, on which there has been wide consultation and which take into account the views of local people. We need to ensure that environmental justice is available to all and is not prohibitively expensive, as it currently is.
09:52
“a better, more consistent way”,
and to help clarify the existing waste management regulations, which were described as
“complicated and difficult to understand.”
The targets that are laid out in the zero waste plan are ambitious, and such ambition should be lauded, but we must ensure that, in the rush to meet the targets, we do not sacrifice long-term benefits for short-term gains.
The introduction to the zero waste plan states that it is underpinned by a determination to make
“best practical use of the approach in the waste management hierarchy: waste prevention, reuse, recycling and recovery.”
There are currently 20 proposals for waste incinerators in Scotland, many of which do not meet those criteria. For example, pyrolysis incinerators burn waste at high temperatures to extract energy from waste. That is one of the two least-favoured options in the waste hierarchy, as it undermines efforts to reduce, recycle, and reuse.
The zero waste plan states that, by 2025, no more than 25 per cent of municipal waste should be used for energy from waste, with the remaining 75 per cent recycled. In January 2010, Audit Scotland reported that councils were highly unlikely to meet the target and noted that, to have any chance of meeting it, councils would require additional composting and recycling centres—so, not more waste incinerators. However, Government reporters who were reviewing a recent case contradicted that by stating that an incinerator was “urgently” needed to work towards zero waste targets. That leaves us in something of a quandary, because the more incinerators we build, the less likely we are to meet our recycling targets.
The inconsistencies do not end there. According to the zero waste plan, waste management developments
“should be located in sites where potential impacts on the human, built and natural environment can be minimised.”
However, in certain recent cases, seemingly legitimate concerns about the potential impact of the development on the human, built and natural environment have been dismissed.
Finally, and perhaps more pertinently in this debate, the zero waste plan states:
“Members of the public and community groups have an important role in the planning system and are encouraged to get involved in the development planning process and planning applications.”
In the past two years, local people have united in opposition to proposals to build incinerators in their areas. The groups have involved themselves from the start of the planning process and, where they have thought that they have been excluded, they have made great efforts to ensure that their voices are heard. Thousands of objections that have been lodged against waste management planning applications and many thoughtful and reasoned arguments that have been offered in support of those objections have effectively been discounted. The final recourse in such cases is to instigate costly legal proceedings.
That brings us to the equivocal position that the Scottish Government and Scottish National Party MSPs occupy. Although the Government is on record as being opposed to large-scale and inefficient energy-from-waste facilities, that did not prevent it from appointing reporters to review a local council’s decision to refuse planning permission for a pyrolysis plant, despite the fact that the Government retains complete discretion over which appeals it chooses to delegate. Some local SNP MSPs who were seeking re-election were vocal in their condemnation of local planning decisions about waste management facilities, only for post-electoral changes in their professional circumstances to cause them to become a great deal more circumspect. Rather than calling for Government interventions, they have ceded responsibility and neglected to represent their constituents.
The zero waste management policy was designed to iron out inconsistencies and contradictions in the current planning regulations, to make the process more transparent, to give local communities a voice and to ensure that waste management targets are met in the most efficient and environmentally friendly ways possible. It has not achieved those things. We need more than effective waste reduction targets; we need a realistic programme to achieve those targets and we need clear and concise planning regulations across local and national government, on which there has been wide consultation and which take into account the views of local people. We need to ensure that environmental justice is available to all and is not prohibitively expensive, as it currently is.
09:52
In the same item of business
The Presiding Officer (Tricia Marwick)
NPA
Good morning. The first item of business is a debate on motion S4M-00853, in the name of Michael McMahon, on waste management. In the light of the possibilit...
Michael McMahon (Uddingston and Bellshill) (Lab)
Lab
Although, as all colleagues did, I came into politics to make life better for those whom I represent, I confess that—unlike for a good number of fellow membe...
Stewart Maxwell (West Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
Perhaps Michael McMahon did not read the full question and answer exchange with Mr Mather when he was minister. We were talking about a particular plant in m...
Michael McMahon
Lab
A plant of 1 million tonnes might be of a different scale from the ones that we are talking about, but people on the Government side of the chamber campaigne...
Iain Gray (East Lothian) (Lab)
Lab
Perhaps the member will acknowledge another example in my constituency, where an application for an incinerator handling 300,000 tonnes a year—well over twic...
Michael McMahon
Lab
I agree, because that is the level at which Jim Mather said incinerators would be unacceptable. However, they are being approved by this Government against t...
The Minister for Local Government and Planning (Aileen Campbell)
SNP
Will the member take an intervention?
Michael McMahon
Lab
Right on cue.
Aileen Campbell
SNP
Does the member not recognise the role of local authorities in that case? That decision was rightly up to South Lanarkshire Council and it made its decision.
Michael McMahon
Lab
The minister has clearly not been listening and makes the point for me. The minister passes the buck to local authorities for issues that ultimately rest wit...
Aileen Campbell
SNP
It is part of the Planning etc (Scotland) Act 2006 that local decisions would be made locally.
Michael McMahon
Lab
The minister makes the point for me. We have asked her to review the guidance and the planning laws. She refuses to do that but continually campaigns and cla...
The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment (Richard Lochhead)
SNP
I welcome the opportunity to debate this important topic and thank Michael McMahon and his colleagues for giving Parliament this opportunity.I listened caref...
Michael McMahon
Lab
I make it clear that we are not asking for the scrapping of planning system. I said that I concur with Christina McKelvie in asking for a review to ensure th...
Richard Lochhead
SNP
The debate addresses some of the challenges that our society faces on the road to zero waste Scotland—a destination that we all, I am pleased to say, appear ...
Margaret Mitchell (Central Scotland) (Con)
Con
I thank the minister for taking an intervention. I do not think that anyone disputes the fact that there will be residual waste. The problem is that faciliti...
Richard Lochhead
SNP
I have an element of sympathy with the member’s comments. That is why more infrastructure needs to be built in Scotland.I am acutely aware of the strong emot...
Stewart Maxwell
SNP
On a very specific point, my understanding is that the Planning etc (Scotland) Act 2006 provides that there should be a fit and proper person test for anybod...
Richard Lochhead
SNP
The member raises an interesting point. Of course, the Electricity Act 1989 is reserved to the United Kingdom Government, although elements of it are devolve...
Elaine Smith (Coatbridge and Chryston) (Lab)
Lab
Will the member give way?
Richard Lochhead
SNP
I apologise, but I have taken three interventions already.I have no desire to see such levels of incineration in Scotland. That is why we have set some of th...
Elaine Smith
Lab
Will the member give way?
Richard Lochhead
SNP
I am sorry, I have taken three interventions already. I will take the member’s intervention in my closing speech.At each stage of the planning process, wheth...
Margaret Mitchell (Central Scotland) (Con)
Con
This is a timely debate, for there is little doubt that waste management is contentious, complicated and emotive—almost always because communities do not con...
Aileen Campbell
SNP
Will the member take an intervention?
Margaret Mitchell
Con
I am in my last seconds.Finally, the Scottish Government must consider the reform of subsidies for renewable energy operators in an effort to discourage spec...
The Presiding Officer
NPA
We move to the open debate. I remind members that they have a very tight four minutes.09:39
Elaine Smith (Coatbridge and Chryston) (Lab)
Lab
The debate is vital, because how we deal with our waste will have consequences for our planet for generations to come. People recognise that. Masses of peopl...
Mark McDonald (North East Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
I know that the Labour Party does not oppose energy from waste per se, and I give it credit for that. I know that because when Aberdeen City Council—I declar...
Siobhan McMahon (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Lab
The Scottish Government’s zero waste plan was intended to lead to waste disposal being regulated in“a better, more consistent way”,and to help clarify the ex...