Meeting of the Parliament 15 December 2016
There seems to be a fashion for making declarations at the moment. I am not going to declare that I am a farmer, because I do not farm rubbish and nor am I a rubbish farmer. What I would like to do, though, is to take the debate to a much more local level and talk about why the Highlands are different from most of Scotland—not just because the Highlands are the best place to live and work, but because we deal with waste in a completely different way.
Those members who have listened to that statement will know that it is true in all but one respect: there are 27,000 houses in Inverness whose food waste is dealt with in the same way as that in the rest of Scotland, through kerbside collections—it is estimated that some 1,700 tonnes of food waste are collected per annum. What happens to the rest of the food waste in the Highlands? I am not sure that my investigations have proved that anyone can really tell us.
Perhaps we should look at the size of the problem. Figures suggest that each household in the Highlands generates about 150kg of food waste a year. If we scale that up for the Highlands as a whole, there will be some 16,000 to 17,000 tonnes of food waste annually. To complete the maths—for those who need it—we are capturing only 10 per cent of the food waste that is produced in the Highlands; another 90 per cent is to be collected.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that food waste is composted. Highland Council’s calculations suggest that, between 2001 and 2010, 41,236 compost bins were distributed. However, demand peaked in 2006-07 and there has been a rapid decline in demand since. Even if it could be assumed that all the units that were supplied by Highland Council were still being used—which would be false—we would have a long way to go to achieve zero biodegradable waste going to landfill by the end of 2020.
The question must be how the Government thinks it will be possible to achieve the very laudable target that it has set if it ignores the Highlands or does not treat them differently. Saying that we are the same as the central belt, with its large urban conurbations where waste collection is simple, is too easy. As many MSPs know, those conurbations are easy to move around on foot, by taking a brisk walk. It takes those of us who live in the Highlands hours to move from one side of the region to the other, and that is using an insured car. That highlights the issues.
If we look at the cost per household of collecting waste in 2014-15, we see that, excluding Stirling, it is highest in the Highlands, where it is nearly 40 per cent higher than the national average. The cost is extremely high. When I contacted Highland Council earlier this week to find out how it would deal with that, it had no idea. In fact, it had not even commissioned a waste plan for the Highlands. It appears that the problem is too big and that the DIY solutions that have been suggested, which have been used and funded in the past, are only scratching the surface and will not be fit for the future.
So what is the solution? I have to look to the Government for the answer—it is the Government’s target, so it must have a solution; or is it just a soundbite policy based on unachievable targets? I hoped that in this afternoon’s budget announcement, I would see some money set aside for this, and I would take an intervention now if anyone saw it. I did not, so I have real concerns.
As my time is up, I will conclude. The cabinet secretary must look at the Highlands differently and help us to achieve the target if it is to be a real target rather than a soundbite one.
16:09