- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 1 March 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on whether a producer registration system has been established for its Deposit Return Scheme, and, if not, when one will be established.
Answer
Under the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020, producers must register with SEPA either directly or via a scheme administrator for their products to be sold legally onto the Scottish market. In line with the full implementation date that I announced in my statement to Parliament on 14 December 2021, the window for producers to make such registrations will run from 1 January-28 February 2023.
SEPA’s digital registration service is currently in development and will be online from 1 January 2023 in accordance with the producer registration window.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05517 by Lorna Slater on 24 January 2022, whether the 27% figure was calculated without accounting for landfill releasing less biogenic CO2 than incineration, and what its position is on this matter.
Answer
The treatment of biogenic carbon is detailed in Section 2.1 of the technical note to the report, which was carried out in line with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodology. Both the report and technical note are available on the Zero Waste Scotland website: The climate change impact of burning municipal waste in Scotland | Zero Waste Scotland .
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown for the most recent year for which data is available of direct CO2 emissions recorded through calibrated flow rates and calibrated CO2 continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS) from each municipal waste incinerator in Scotland; what proportion of the CO2 was (a) fossil-based and (b) biogenic, and how this split was derived.
Answer
There is no requirement for the direct measurements of CO2 via calibrated flow meters and calibrated CO2 CEMS in SEPA permits for municipal waste incinerators (MWI) in Scotland. The requested information is therefore not available either in total, or as a breakdown by proportion derived from fossil fuel and proportion derived from biogenic sources.
Permit holders are however required to report their annual CO2 emissions via the Scottish Pollutant Release Inventory (SPRI) and SEPA can therefore provide this data for the last reported year although this may include CO2 from additional sources to those from the incineration process eg. standby generators. This data can be found in SEPA’s SPRI data tool informatics.sepa.org.uk/SPRI/ . This is usually estimated using emission factors. There is no requirement in SPRI for MWIs to further breakdown their reported CO2 emission data into the proportions derived from fossil fuel or biogenic sources so this data is not available.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether municipal waste incinerators in Scotland are currently required to accurately measure direct CO2 emissions through the use of calibrated flow rates and calibrated CO2 continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS), and, if not, what plans there are to require this, in line with the approach taken by the UK Government Environment Agency.
Answer
As per S6W-06417 answered on 28 February 2022 , measurement of CO2 emissions using calibrated flow meters and CEMS is not a current requirement in SEPA permits for existing MWIs.
All SEPA Permits for existing sites must comply with the requirements of the Waste Incineration BAT Conclusions (WI BATCs) by 3 December 2023. SEPA will review Permits for MWIs to ensure they will be compliant by the deadline. This will include the new requirement for a calibrated flow meter.
The calibration of CO2 CEMS is not required by the WI BATCs. However, as part of the BAT review process, SEPA will consider whether to include a requirement for calibration of CEMS for CO2 and reporting of CO2 mass emissions to align with the approach taken by the Environment Agency. Whether or not each MWI has an appropriate CEMS in place which is able to be calibrated for measurement of CO2 will be confirmed during the BAT Review for each Permit.
All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the amount of (a) waste incinerated and (b) electricity exported at each municipal waste incinerator in Scotland in each of the last three years.
Answer
Please see a breakdown of the available data for a) and b)
Waste Incinerated and electricity produced at MWIs 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021
1. Waste incinerated by site (Tonnes)
The following data is from Waste Data Returns. Please refer to attached table which notes that the data below is higher for some sites than incinerated tonnages in Annual Reports made under the Permit.
Site | Permit Number | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021* |
Lerwick Energy Recovery Plant | PPC/A/1003141 | 23,054 | 20,890 | 22,850 | 19,037 |
MVV Environment Baldovie | PPC/A/1003157 | 94,625 | 102,819 | 104,519 | 160,632 |
Viridor Dunbar ERF | PPC/A/1032878 | 41,284 | 262,138 | 324,762 | 320,373 |
Viridor GRREC | PPC/A/111002 | | 93,340 | 123,831 | 98,975 |
FCC Millerhill | PPC/A/1136072 | 16,460 | 142,490 | 156,654 | 159,481 |
Levenseat Renewable Energy Limited is still in commissioning - Site is reporting waste inputs and outputs but no incineration tonnages.
1. Electricity exported to grid (MWh)
Site | Permit Number | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
Lerwick Energy Recovery Plant | PPC/A/1003141 | Nil - Note 1 | Nil - Note 1 | Nil - Note 1 | Nil - Note 1 |
MVV Environment Baldovie | PPC/A/1003157 | Note 2 | Note 2 | 33,800 Note 3 | Data is not yet available |
Viridor Dunbar ERF | PPC/A/1032878 | Note 2 | Note 2 | 224,848 | 237,524 |
Viridor GRREC | PPC/A/111002 | Note 2 | Note 2 | 46,668 | Data is not yet available |
FCC Millerhill | PPC/A/1136072 | Note 2 | Note 2 | 100,765 | 103,760 |
1. Heat recovery plant only.
2. No data held post cyber-attack.
3. Lower figures than 2019 due to operation without steam turbine from October 2021.
4. Levenseat Renewable Energy Limited is still in commissioning and are therefore not required to report this data.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05517 by Lorna Slater on 24 January 2022, regarding the estimated 27% lower impact of incineration over landfill, whether it will confirm that this involves an underlying assumption that (a) it is an estimate of historical (circa 2018) impacts rather than current or anticipated climate impacts of incineration, (b) it is based on sending waste directly to landfill with no biostabilisation component, (c) the impact of displaced energy is modelled using the UK grid rather than the relatively more decarbonised Scotland grid and (d) the technical report that contains the 27% estimate acknowledges data gaps in the composition of municipal waste and the energy outputs of energy from waste (EfW) plants.
Answer
All the underlying assumptions used in the analysis, including the information requested by the member, are available in the Zero Waste Scotland report The Climate Change Impacts of Burning Municipal Waste in Scotland and the accompanying technical report. Both are available on the Zero Waste Scotland website: The climate change impact of burning municipal waste in Scotland | Zero Waste Scotland .
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 February 2022
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 3 March 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to promote the welfare of dogs.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 3 March 2022
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 17 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05593 by Lorna Slater on 24 January 2022, whether it will confirm whether it holds details of estimated preparedness times for any individual businesses in Scotland, and, if so, whether it will provide that information.
Answer
As part of the review into the implementation date for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) we carried out intensive scrutiny of Circularity Scotland Ltd’s (CSL) implementation programme, including through the Gateway Review and Assurance of Action Plan, as well as engagement from Scottish Ministers and officials. I am therefore confident that CSL will be prepared to deliver its obligations by 16 August 2023.
The Gateway Review interviewed a range of other stakeholders and, although it gave a preparedness estimate of 12-24 months for individual stakeholders, did not give a breakdown of preparedness estimates for individual businesses. While businesses interviewed separately by SG tended to endorse this finding, we do not hold exact preparedness times for these individual businesses.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 17 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05700 by Lorna Slater on 26 January 2022, whether it will confirm, regardless of whether there was a revised launch date or not, whether the minister was aware that there would be a delay to the Deposit Return Scheme (a) on, (b) prior or (c) after 17 November 2021.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-05700 on 26 January 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Lorna Slater on 17 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment was carried out to ascertain the suitability of digital technologies for inclusion in the deposit return scheme; which technologies were assessed; what assessment method was used, and who carried out each assessment, and when.
Answer
Decisions regarding the use of technology to operate Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) are for industry to take in line with the principle of producer responsibility.
We would anticipate that industry will make extensive use of digital technology in delivering the scheme, for example by developing an IT system to track payments made and received, adopting state-of-the-art reverse vending technology to prevent fraud, and using digital media to communicate with the public regarding DRS.
We are aware of the so-called ‘digital DRS’ as a proposed approach to delivering deposit return whereby consumers redeem deposits on scheme articles by scanning them with a smartphone before placing them in their kerbside recycling. We considered this approach during the policy-development process for DRS and the strong feedback from both industry and environmental NGOs was that the technology is not sufficiently mature for implementation on the timetable for our DRS.
We, and Circularity Scotland Ltd as scheme administrator, are monitoring developments including trials of ‘digital DRS’ in Wales. However, we are focussed on delivering a return-to-retail DRS, in line with international best practice, that will make it as easy to return a bottle or can as it was to buy it.
