The Scottish Government has announced plans to streamline all Government-led, Scottish waste delivery bodies into into a single super body called Zero Waste Scotland.
Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said Zero Waste
Scotland was being established to better communicate its message on
waste and because of “the need to tackle our waste culture to help conserve our
resources for future generations and cuts costs for households and businesses.”
Zero Waste Scotland is being created out of existing body WRAP Scotland. Other agencies that will be folded into it include Waste Aware Scotland, Envirowise Scotland, Remade Scotland, Keep Scotland Beautiful, NISP (National Industrial Symbiosis Programme) and the Community Recycling Network for Scotland.
The changes follow the results of a recent consultation, which confirmed stakeholders' desire for a single, Scotland-focused programme, driven by and aligned to deliver the nation’s Zero Waste Plan. Zero Waste does not mean that waste disappears, but instead eliminates the unnecessary use of raw materials through sustainable design, resource efficiency, waste prevention and recovering value from products when they reach the end of their lives.
Scotland has already increased recycling rates to 35 per cent and the Scottish Government believes that this single Scottish programme will result in a more focused delivery of the Zero Waste Plan and deliver other benefits including: simpler delivery landscape for customers, reduced overlaps of activities, potential efficiency savings, as well as improved transparency and accountability.
Lockhead, said: "In order to meet Scotland's changing needs and deliver the Zero Waste Plan, we too must modify our approach to meet these needs. A Scottish identity, under Zero Waste Scotland, will allow us to tailor delivery to suit waste management and infrastructure. We will continue to work closely with current delivery partners during both the transition phase and in future endeavours. I believe that this approach will improve our ability for us to take action in Scotland, for Scotland."
Last year, the UK Government
announced plans to axe a number of English state-funded agencies to create a single body for advice and support services on resource efficiency.
Under the streamlining plans, which are due to finalised shortly, organisations such as NISP, Envirowise, The Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse, Construction Resources and Waste Platform, Action Sustainability and the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) centre for local authorities, are being rolled into WRAP, which is to run the new ‘super’ agency.