Truckloads of Scotland’s rubbish will be exported to England, say experts

Up to 100 trucks of Scotland waste will move every day to England once a prohibition of landfills arrives at the end of the year, the dissemination of the BBC has been said.

The Scottish government is prohibiting waste from “black bag” buried in the landfill since December 31, but acknowledges that they are currently not enough incinerators to meet additional demand.

The prohibition, which covers biodegradable municipal waste (BMW), will apply to almost all national and commercial waste.

The Scottish ministers said that any export of waste should only be seen as a “short -term solution.”

Originally, the ban was in place by 2021, but was delayed due to COVID pandemic and concerns that companies were not ready.

You will see a series of materials prohibited by the landfill, including municipal waste of non -recyclable black bags, wood, textiles, paper and food.

These biodegradable waste decomposes to produce methane, a greenhouse gas that is about 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Some inert material, such as ashes of the incinerators and construction debris, will still be allowed in landfills.

The Scottish government wants to stop traditional waste from the black bag buried in the field by increasing recycling rates and using more waste energy incinerators.

However, four years after the date of the original plan, environmental consultants have concluded that hundreds of thousands of tons or garbage do not yet have a home.

More waste is already being sent to incinerators, or at energy energy sites, but not enough will be ready for the deadline of December 31.

Leave a “capacity gap” that zero scotland waste is 600,000 tons in the first year of the ban.

Some commercial waste tips and companies have approached garbage management operators in England to negotiate “bridge contracts”.

Because most incinerators run with very little replacement capacity, it would mean sending excess scotland waste to be filled in England.

The United Kingdom government also wants to eliminate biodegradable waste from the landfill and announced a consultation earlier this year, but there is currently no policy south of the border.

David Balmer, an expert in waste from Ers Remediation, told the dissemination program: “He is seeing the equivalent of between 80 and 100 minimum trucks that extends seven days a week to take this material to an installation in England or abroad.”

And there are groups that logistically transportation may not be totally attainable.

Alasdair Meldrum, director of Waste Management Consultants Albion Environmental, said: “We have tried that it has not gotten trucks and vehicles to move it.”

He added: “You have the environmental impact of all that transport, it is not sensitive, but the people who have invested in incinerators say” we have invested all this serious money of the prohibition. “

“So, we are trapped in a very difficult place.”

Gillian Martin, secretary of the Cabinet of Action and Climate Energy, told the Good Morning Scotland program of the BBC that the temporary transport of the waste was better for the environment than continuing to use the landfills.

She said: “The reason for the incineration gap is due to external factors, particularly inflation and the cost of initially building them.

“We have plans for more incinerators, with the energy of the waste schemes, which occur in the next year and in the next three years, so it is a temporary situation.”

While the reason for the prohibition is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases from the landfills, the short -term impact will be an increase in the emissions of the fleet of heavy vehicles that take the waste to sites in cumbria, Northumberland or Potntiaty.

The long -term strategy had a leg to reduce the amount of “black bags” generated by waste households, which means that it would less have to be incinerated.

But domestic recycling rates have barely moved in a decade.

In 2013, Scottish houses recycled 41.6% of their waste, but by 2023 that figure had increased by less than 2 percentage points to 43.5%.

The figures of England and Ireland of the North are slightly better, but for Wales it is a huge 64.7%.

In Scotland, there are currently eight operational incinerators throughout the country.

Until 2022 there was a hurry to build more, but the Scottish government could stop the development fearing that it ends up being an overcapacity.

The only additional ones that will now be built have already entered the planning process.

While the incinerators are still responsible for a significant amount of greenhouse gases, experts say they are approximately one less harmful third for the environment than methane offered by rotten materials in landfills.

As an additional benefit, they also produce some electricity and some recover heat to heat houses and neighboring buildings.

Colin Church, who presided over an independent review of the incineration in Scotland, believes that the change to the incinerators has been the correct choice.

He said to disclosure: “It is probably the best we can do with the waste, with our current levels of technology, so capturing some energy of that is a good idea.”

Environmental groups are concerned that the contracts that guarantee the waste delivered by the advice to the incinerators will discourage local authorities to invest in more recycling.

Kim Pratt, by Friends of the Earth Scotland, described the current waste management system as broken.

She said: “The incineration in Scotland is out of control.

“There are bone incinerators built in Aberdeen, in Falkirk, this year it will also be built in northern Ayrshire.

“All these incinerators have locally opposing communities.”

Waste activist Laura Young said: “One of the concerns is that these are expectations, expensive to administer, great contracts involved in this, and means we need to use them.

“We build them, so we need to use them.”

The Scottish government points to a variety of initiatives that it has launched in recent years to address household waste and create a more “circular” economy, where the material is woke up from time to time.

These include prohibitions in unique use vape, the next positions in disposable cups and a planned deposit-storage scheme for cans and plastic bottles.

He said that the “vast majority” of the councils had current alternative measures ahead of the prohibition of the landfill that entered into force, but that “they will work in close collaboration with local authorities and sector agencies to monitor and review any related problem that may arise as the date of prohibition approaches.”

The Scottish government added: “Any export of waste should only be seen as a short -term solution.”

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