Scotland and Wales outline resource ambitions

The Scottish and Welsh Governments are keen to pass more measures to help encourage the development of a circular economy, officials from each of the devolved administrations have said.

Speaking at a session during the Resource conference and exhibition at Londons Excel Centre last week (March 6) entitled How can legislation support the move to circular business? Andy Rees from Wales and Callum Blackburn of the Scottish Government both said that government had an important part to play in encouraging the growth of the resource sector.

Mr Blackburn, who is policy manager for the circular economy within the Scottish Governments Waste team, said that the implementation of the Waste (Scotland) Regulations, which impose strict requirements on businesses to separate materials, outlined the scale of the governments ambition, with the promise of more to come.

He said: In terms of legislation: in January we introduced the regulations which are about the separation of materials for businesses. Thats a first step in making sure that those materials are available.

That is the first step and we want to do more, and we are open to debate over whether legislation is the way forward. The ambition in Scotland is demonstrated by putting those regulations in place and that is a sign of more to come.

Wales

Meanwhile, Dr Rees pointed to the Welsh Governments white paper, published in October 2013, which sets out a number of proposals seeking to provide the legislative framework to manage natural resources in a joined-up way as an indication of the direction in Wales.
Among the measures outlined in the consultation document, were landfill bans for some waste streams as well as proposals to give Ministers the power to extend requirements for separate collections to include card, wood and food wastes.

Dr Rees said: Our latest strategy promotes closed loop recycling and reuse and we are now turning our attention to industrial and commercial waste. We published a white paper which very much relates to the Scottish approach and a requirement for extra materials to be collected separately and a requirement for businesses to separate waste at source.

We have an aim to have a closed loop economy in Wales, but the practicalities are difficult. We work in a market place where commodities are traded globally and we have EU public procurement rules so we have to open things up. We are working closely with WRAP to see if there can be closed loop material streams.

Also speaking at the session were Michael Ciotkowski of the Techology Strategy Board, and Ben Walsh of the Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse (CRR). Both speakers agreed that measures such as quality standards would help to develop a closed loop economy, as they could help to encourage confidence in remanufactured goods.

Mr Walsh, said: Having good standards available for your procurers would be a very good enabler to encourage good manufacturing.