How Scotland should promote a circular economy
‘Frustrated and deflated’ was how I felt after the Circular Economy Bill was approved by the Scottish Parliament.
Frustrated because we have waited eight years for a bill which, despite its name, won’t create a circular economy in Scotland. Deflated because most attempts to improve the bill from across the chamber failed.
A circular economy is a simple concept – keep materials in use for as long as possible to extract maximum economic, social and environmental value from them. This will create more, higher skilled jobs, reduce income inequality and help meet our net zero targets.
Currently, the consumption of materials has spiralled out of control with UK consumers using three times the resources the planet can sustainably support. Globally, the trajectory looks grim too, with a growing middle class putting more pressure on demand for finite resources. The implications for our environment, our economy and global security are terrifying.
Scotland’s economy is just 1.3% circular and the UK’s 7.5% according to the Circularity Gap Report. For Scotland, this means 98.7 per cent of the resources that we use are from virgin sources.
As a long-term advocate for the circular economy, you can imagine my excitement when the Scottish Government finally announced they would be introducing a Circular Economy Bill. What measures would be introduced to attain sustainable consumption, achieve positive behaviour change and massively alter our economic system?
Almost nothing, in fact, because what we got was little more than a glorified waste and litter bill – important issues of course – but hardly the ambition we need to build a sustainable economy and see it thrive.
The bill continues the current approach to household waste, seeks to introduce a ban on the disposal of unsold consumer goods, places charges on single-use items like coffee cups and cracks down on fly tipping and littering.
On recycling, Wales are the gold standard in the UK, so we could have adopted their approach. But the Scottish Government wanted to deploy a ‘new’ approach, which turned out to be the same strategy deployed for the last 20 years. A strategy that has seen household recycling rates flatline.
Even after more than a decade of trying, the Scottish Government still haven’t managed to deliver their 2013 household recycling target let alone their 2020 target. Unfortunately, measures to codify these targets for 2026 and 2028 respectively were defeated along with providing local authorities with sufficient resources to carry out the actions required of them.
In a further twist, the Scottish Government claimed their plan for local authority waste collection would be produced by March 2026 only to then vote against it.
Of course, recycling is not the primary goal of waste management. So, it would have been useful to have included, and even prioritised, support for preparation for reuse. Again though, amendments to make that happen were blocked.
Amendments to create circular economy targets were also rejected. That created a poor market signal for businesses and investors that the Scottish Government isn’t serious about building a circular economy.
Of course, if we expect the private sector to get involved at all then the public sector should be leading the way. Including sustainable public procurement is one of the easiest and cheapest wins for creating a circular economy. But again, the Scottish Government opposed this – voting against a requirement for public bodies to produce circular economy plans.
On a more positive note, the bill will, for the first time require the production of a circular economy strategy that is regularly reviewed. In turn, creating an opportunity to put in place measures to create a circular economy.
For example, we must tackle consumption with system design in order to move away from short term to long term consumption. This can be achieved via rental models where consumers pay per use for a better product. It’s cheaper and better for the consumer, can help tackle poverty and can be applied across a range of goods from textiles to household appliances and electricals. We have already seen this in our consumption of media at home with the move from DVDs to streaming platforms, so it can be done.
We have to hope such opportunities afforded by the strategy are actually taken. In the meantime, the bill can at least help to improve waste management and littering. Assuming ministers can commit to properly implementing the limited actions in the legislation.
Maurice Golden is a Member of the Scottish Parliament for the North East Scotland region.
