Rob Edwards

Revealed: how the Scottish government sold out to supermarkets on food waste

from Sunday Herald, 17 March 2013

A high-profile Scottish government campaign to cut food waste had to be soft-pedalled to avoid offending the big supermarkets, a document leaked to the Sunday Herald reveals.

Campaign staff were forbidden from advising shoppers to buy less food or to ignore ‘buy one get one free’ (BOGOF) offers because Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco were “extremely sensitive about this subject”. Winning their co-operation for the campaign had been “very difficult”, says an internal briefing.

Environmentalists have accused ministers of “selling out” to big business at the expense of pollution and waste. “You wonder which campaign will be neutered next in the supermarkets' BOGOF deal with the government,” said Dr Richard Dixon, the director of Friends of the Earth Scotland. 

The campaign, launched by the environment minister, Richard Lochhead MSP, last October, included TV, radio and newspaper adverts, social media and a travelling supermarket roadshow. The aim was to try and prevent people throwing away up to a fifth of their food, which is reckoned to cost Scotland a massive £1 billion a year.

Over two months, teams were recruited to staff stalls at major branches of Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco in Glasgow, Paisley, Falkirk, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness and elsewhere. They were equipped with branded bodywarmers, baseball caps and iPads and told to “engage as many people as possible”. 

The strapline for the campaign was “shop smarter, waste less, save more.” But according to the official 69-page briefing for staff obtained by the Sunday Herald, they had to play down the central message for fear of upsetting the supermarkets.

Ministers under fire for promoting food packaging

from Sunday Herald, 17 March 2013

Scottish ministers have been accused of surrendering to the propaganda of the £11 billion packaging industry by forming a partnership that promotes food wrappings.

A government website aimed at encouraging people to waste less food waxes lyrical about the benefits of packaging – and it is backed by the industry’s Packaging Federation. “Food loves the packaging it comes in,” the website says.

“There’s nothing better to protect it and keep it fresher for longer. From ziplocks on cheese packs to breathable fruit and veg bags, it has been cleverly designed with all sorts of cunning features.”

But according to the Green MSP, Alison Johnstone, this will confuse the public. “Most waste information urges you to try and avoid over-packaging of fresh food, not tell you how brilliant it is,” she said.

Crackdown on waste incinerator that breached toxic pollution limits

from Sunday Herald, 20 January 2013

Toxic pollution breaches and an explosion at a new waste incinerator have triggered tough legal action and an investigation by government safety watchdogs, upsetting plans for a dozen more waste-burning plants across Scotland.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) last week slapped an enforcement notice on Scotgen, a company that is trying to commission a pioneering “energy-from-waste” plant at Dargavel in Dumfries.

This follows an admission that the plant breached safety limits by emitting more cancer-causing dioxins than permitted into the air in October, and then failed to promptly inform Sepa. The company has been ordered to restrict the plant’s operations, and to ensure that future monitoring results are provided as soon as possible.

Scotgen is also under investigation by the Health and Safety Executive following a “pipe burst” at the Dargavel plant in August. According to a report by the company, nearby pipework and a roof were damaged by a steam explosion.

Environmental groups and local campaigners say that the plant is dangerous and are demanding that it be immediately shut down. They are also calling for plans for other waste incinerators in Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Lothian, Perth, Aberdeenshire and Invergordon to be halted (see table below).

Trying to move Scotland towards zero waste

for Sunday Herald, 20 January 2013 

The way that Scotland deals with its reeking mountains of household waste has been revolutionised over the last decade. It has moved from recycling less than five per cent in 2000 to recycling over 40% in 2011.

The trouble, though, is that is not enough. In order to comply with European Union legislation and to help achieve its “zero waste" ambition, the Scottish government is aiming to recycle 50% by 2013 and 70% by 2025. 

But it is going to have difficulties fulfilling those aspirations. The more waste is recycled, the harder it becomes to recycle what’s left. Much is contaminated, and there’s a limit to the number of materials that can be reused or remade.

Research for the Scottish government in 2010 suggested that a quarter of municipal waste was incapable of being recycled or composted. So in order to avoid that being dumped in landfill sites, the idea is that it could be burnt, gasified or otherwise treated to make energy.

Hence councils and private companies have been falling over themselves in the last few years to suggest shiny, new energy-from-waste plants across the country. Local communities, however, have not been exactly welcoming. 

Now in shops: the plastic bag that biodegrades

from Sunday Herald, 06 January 2013

Plastic bags that disintegrate safely instead of persisting and polluting the environment have been introduced by one of Britain’s leading retailers.

John Lewis department stores have started using what they say is the UK’s first biodegradable polythene packaging for millions of the household products they sell every year.

Compounds added to new bags for bed linen and school wear ensure that they break down harmlessly even if buried in landfill dumps, the company claims. The plastic will rot into water, gas and humus within 15 years, it says, compared to hundreds of years for conventional plastic bags.

Later this year John Lewis is planning to start wrapping more products in the biodegradable plastic, including its own brand of curtains. After six months, the company promises to make the technology behind the new packaging available to other retailers, so it could spread.

“Our new bags are designed to make it easier for our customers to dispose of polythene bags in a more environmentally sustainable way, helping to reduce our overall impact as a business,” said Mark Gallen, packaging design and production manager at John Lewis.

Working with suppliers he discovered that introducing a small amount of additive would enable polyethylene to degrade even in the absence of air, light or heat. He hasn’t as yet disclosed exactly what the additive is.

Solved: the mystery of the 30,000 plastic toys lost at sea

20 August 2012

It has become a modern-day myth. The fate of almost 30,000 toy ducks, frogs, beavers and turtles lost in an accident at sea in 1992 has intrigued millions around the world.

Stories that they had somehow managed to migrate across the Arctic from the Pacific and circumnavigate the globe have proliferated. There have been numerous reports of them turning up years later on the east coast of the US and in Europe.

The truth, however, is less romantic, and much more disturbing. Along with billions of tonnes of other plastic wastes, they are disintegrating into tiny fragments of “plastic sand” that will pollute the planet for hundreds of years, threatening wildlife and destroying the environment.

That, at least, is the conclusion of Donovan Hohn, a New York author who has spent five years investigating what actually happened to the toys. He is due to talk about his findings at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Tuesday evening.

“At the outset, I had no intention of doing what I eventually did: quit my job, kiss my wife farewell, and ramble about the Northern Hemisphere aboard all manner of watercraft,” he wrote in his book, Moby Duck.

Toxic pollution upsets plans for waste incinerators

from Sunday Herald, 22 July 2012

A series of highly toxic emissions in breach of safety limits from Scotland’s newest waste incinerator are threatening to upset plans to build similar plants across the country.

An energy-from-waste plant at Dargavel in Dumfries has had its operations restricted by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) after it admitted releasing cancer-causing dioxins up to two and half times permitted levels into the air.

The company that runs the plant, Scotgen, is now facing difficulties getting a pollution permit for a second waste incinerator at Dovesdale Farm near Stonehouse in South Lanarkshire. This proposal has prompted 24,000 objections from local residents and others concerned about the health risks.

Scotgen’s problems are also likely to hamper plans by other companies for another 14 incinerators across Scotland. Most of them have run into fierce opposition from local communities. 

Scotgen’s Dumfries plant, commissioned in 2009 to gasify more than 20,000 tonnes of hazardous and municipal waste a year at high temperatures, has had a troubled history. Its pollution performance has been condemned as “very poor” by Sepa.

Building a church from old beer cans

from Sunday Herald, 04 March 2012

It sounds like a cross between Heath Robinson and Blue Peter, with the blessing of the Almighty and a huge heap of ingenuity. And it’s definitely not rubbish.

Thousands of old beer cans, car tyres, shipping containers, industrial pallets and straw bales are being used to build a new church and community centre in Glasgow, all with the help of local people.

The cans are being used to construct walls and furniture, the tyres to form foundations, the containers and pallets to create buildings and the straw bales to provide insulation. It’s one of the most ambitious recycling projects in the country.

With the backing of grants from the Scottish government, the lottery and Glasgow City Council, work is now starting on the first phase of the project - building an “energy hub” and community centre in Milton, a disadvantaged district in north Glasgow.

After that, the plan is to build a church, a café, a theatre, a gallery and offices, set within a landscaped public park. Further grants of £2.2 million are being applied for with the aim of having it all finished by April 2014.

Crackdown on toxic waste trade that contaminates Africa

from Sunday Herald, 13 November, 2011

More than 40 shipments of toxic waste that could contaminate developing countries have been prevented from leaving Scotland in the latest attempt to crack down on the multi-million-pound criminal trade in waste.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), the government’s green watchdog, has this year stopped or sent back export containers full of broken TVs, defunct computers, old fridges, contaminated paper, worn-out tyres and even clapped-out cars.

According to officials, the hazardous junk is heading for Africa or Asia, where much is likely to end up being burnt or dumped, triggering the escape of poisonous toxins that will pollute air and water. Sometimes electronic items will be dismantled using child labour, in a business that has links to serious, organised crime, they say.

The illegal trade is driven by the big profits to be made by selling unsafe or polluting equipment abroad, or by extracting valuable components and materials. A Sepa study suggests that traders would be able to make a profit of around £7,000 for every container of old TVs they export.

“Illegal shipments are a way for criminals to make serious money by dumping our waste on other countries,” John Kenny, Sepa’s waste and enforcement manager told the Sunday Herald.

“There are significant risks to the environment and human health as a result. That’s why Sepa is cracking down on those who flout the law by stopping waste, before it leaves Scotland, through intelligence sharing and targeted inspections.”

The invading incinerators that wreck Scotland’s zero waste plan

from Sunday Herald, 18 September 2011

It’s the invasion of the incinerators. Scotland is facing a massive 17-fold expansion in waste incineration that could blight communities, threaten health and wreck the Scottish government’s recycling targets.

An investigation by the Sunday Herald has uncovered plans for 15 new, high temperature waste plants around the country which will treat nearly three million tonnes of waste a year. This compares to the three existing incinerators that burn just 166,000 tones a year.

Almost everywhere they have been proposed, the new plants have run into fierce opposition from local residents, fearful of toxic emissions, health risks and environmental pollution. They have held angry meetings, marched in protests and gone to court.

Environmentalists point out that the proposed plants are so huge that they will swamp Scottish ministers’ much-vaunted plans for “zero waste”. The incinerators will create such a large demand for waste that they will risk reversing the major gains that have been made in recycling in recent years, they argue.

“The scale of energy from waste proposals is shocking and risks undermining the Scottish government’s zero waste vision,” said Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy with WWF Scotland.

“Burning anything like this volume of household rubbish would render the target to recycle 70 per cent of waste a pipedream. It is at odds with government policy that energy from waste would only be used for materials that can't be recycled or reused.”

Councils fail to meet targets to recycle waste

from The Herald, 04 July 2011

Scotland's largest cities are failing to meet the Government’s target for recycling waste and the country is now lagging behind England and Wales, according to official new figures.

Half of Scotland’s councils – including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and Highland – are falling short of the green goal and their poor performance has been condemned by environmental groups.

Local authorities recycled or composted an average of 37.8% of municipal waste in 2010. This missed the SNP Government’s national target of 40% for the year, and means that Scotland is now trailing behind the rest of the UK and could fail to reach its much-vaunted goal of “zero waste”.

“It is shocking that so many local authorities are falling such a long way short of meeting the 40% target,” said Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy with WWF Scotland.

“If we are to achieve our zero waste aspirations the government must ensure that those falling behind up their game. Stepping up recycling and reuse rates and cutting the amount of waste we produce are essential if we are to reduce our global footprint.”

The Scottish government set a series of targets to boost recycling in 2008, aiming to achieve 40% in 2010, 50% in 2013 and 70% in 2025. In 2009, when the environment secretary, Richard Lochhead, launched his plan for a “zero waste Scotland”, he stressed that “we need to reach 40 per cent by the end of 2010”.

A plastic bottle is left in a Quebec shopping centre - then what happens?

Taxpayers to pay millions for ‘fresh air’ waste

from Sunday Herald, 19 December 2010
 
Council taxpayers who have successfully boosted their recycling face multi-million pound bills for failing to dump enough waste on landfill sites, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

Long term contracts could force local authorities to make “fresh air payments” to private companies for landfill space that they don’t use. The payments, which could cost individual councils millions every year, have been condemned as “ridiculous” and “unbelievable” by councillors and environmental groups.

Scotland is aiming for “zero waste” by attempting to increase recycling and to reduce the amount of waste created in the first place. Over the last five years the proportion of waste being recycled by Scottish local authorities has risen from 17% to over 37%.

This means that much less waste is being disposed of as landfill, where it rots and causes noxious pollution. But some councils signed contracts with waste companies in the 1990s that oblige them to deliver minimum amounts of waste to landfill sites every year.

Exposed: how Scotland’s toxic waste is poisoning Africa and Asia

from Sunday Herald, 26 September 2010

Tens of thousands of tonnes of toxic waste from Scotland are being illegally dumped in Africa and Asia every year with the help of organised criminal gangs, according to an investigation by the Scottish government’s environmental watchdog.

Mountains of broken televisions, defunct microwaves, worn tyres, contaminated paper and other waste exported from Scottish homes and businesses end up threatening the environment and endangering the health of people in Nigeria, Zanzibar, Ghana, Indonesia, Pakistan, China and elsewhere.

But now the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) is cracking down on the criminal trade, and has stopped eight major shipments this year. Four other illegal waste cargoes from Scotland have been intercepted by regulatory agencies in England, the Netherlands and Belgium since 2008 (see table below).

Using a combination of intelligence, surprise checks at ports, and unannounced inspections of waste companies, Sepa has begun to uncover a network of companies and individuals who try and make money from exporting waste.

Sometimes the exports are “dressed” as legitimate recycling operations, with waste electrical goods hidden behind a few rows of properly packaged and working TVs in shipping containers.

Ministers under fire for failing to green government

from Caledonian Mercury, 26 May 2010

Scottish ministers have been condemned by their own expert advisers for failing to meet most of their targets for cutting pollution and greening government.

Their performance has been described as “poor” and “worrying” by the Sustainable Development Commission, which was set up to advise ministers on environmental policy. Ministers will only be forced to improve if they are subject to external scrutiny, the commission warned.

The Scottish government’s failure to live up to its much-vaunted green credentials has also been lambasted as depressing and hypocritical by environmental groups and opposition politicians. In its defence, the government says that it is now trying harder.

When ministers’ latest environmental performance report was published a few days ago, the spin was all positive. “The Scottish government is taking action to improve its environmental performance as it pledges to lead by example,” boasted the news release.

Though you wouldn’t know it from the blurb, the real picture revealed by the report for 2008-09 was very different. Of the eleven environmental targets ministers set themselves, eight are on track to be missed.

Anger after government axes anti-waste projects

from Sunday Herald, 16 May 2010

Ministers are under fire for failing for tackle Scotland’s vast mountain of waste after they axed pioneering projects aimed at reducing rubbish.

Environmental groups, volunteers and politicians are upset because the Scottish government has cut funding for community-based anti-waste schemes. They say this undermines the government’s aim of “zero waste”.

Although there has been a significant rise in the amount of waste being recycled in recent years, this has not led to a reduction in the 20 million tonnes of waste being produced every year. This is a problem, campaigners say, because preventing waste in the first place is more important.

In an attempt to combat the problem, the Scottish government agreed to fund a series of projects under a £7.5 million programme. One was Communities Reducing Excess Waste (CREW), which was run by Friends of the Earth Scotland, and was meant to run for three years from 2008.

The £200,000 project, which employed two staff and involved 55 volunteers, aimed to encourage communities to reduce their waste by avoiding excess packaging, reusing materials and buying less. But earlier this year its funding was suddenly cut, and its staff made redundant.

Radical recommendations to cut waste ‘sidelined’

from Caledonian Mercury, 13 April 2010

A series of radical recommendations aimed at eliminating Scotland’s waste, including ‘pay as you throw’ schemes, landfill bans and a network of biomass plants, are being sidelined by the Scottish government, insiders say.

Five authoritative reports by the Zero Waste Think Tank, a group of experts set up to advise ministers, are being virtually ignored in drawing up the nation’s waste plans. Critics fear that ministers may be losing the political will for tough action on waste.

The reports, which were meant to inform waste policy, were quietly posted on the government’s website last month at the same time as other announcements about recycling. No reference was made to their publication.

The Zero Waste Think Tank, involving 15 waste specialists from public agencies, voluntary organisations and businesses, started work in March 2008. It ended by producing the five reports, covering delivery, regulation, business and climate pollution.

The reports’ recommendations included the adoption of controversial “pay as you throw” schemes designed to encourage consumers to minimise their rubbish. They also suggested that the dumping of certain wastes on landfill sites should be banned.

Crackdown on mass dumping of toxic tyres

from Sunday Herald, 11 April 2010

There’s millions of them, and they can be noxious, polluting and a haven for rats. But they have been dumped all over Scotland by waste cowboys.

The illegal fly-tipping of old vehicle tyres is one of the nation’s biggest waste problems. But it is now facing a crackdown by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), which is determined to catch “dumb dumpers”.

As many as a million tyres a year have been dumped on waste ground in the central belt since 2004. More than five thousand incidents have been reported, many in the west of Scotland.

As well as being a blight on the landscape, dumped tyres are dangerous. They encourage insect and rodent infestations, and are a major fire risk.

PIles of tyres are often set alight and have to be put out by the fire services, sometimes with great difficulty. And when they burn, tyres produce a toxic cocktail of pollutants that can contaminate water, land and air. 

If the polluted air is inhaled, it can cause major public health problems for nearby communities. The pollutants are particularly harmful for those with breathing difficulties.

Egyptian radioactive scrap finds a home in England

Exclusive, 11 October 2009

A controversial shipment of radioactive scrap metal from Egypt, stored at a freight depot in central Scotland for nine years, has been sent to the UK’s radioactive waste dump at Drigg in Cumbria.

Internal papers from the UK government’s waste management steering committee, released under freedom of information legislation, reveal that prolonged efforts to persuade the Egyptian government to take back the scrap failed.

Junk mail tree-trashers outed by environmentalists

for Sunday Herald, 31 May 2009

It’s one of the banes of the modern age, and it’s destroying the world’s forests. But now we know who the main culprits are.

The big companies most to blame for cramming our letter boxes with junk mail have been unmasked. Well-known catalogue retailers, supermarket chains and publishing companies have all been labelled as woeful paper wasters.

One of the worst offenders is the clothing company, Boden, which recently hit the headlines after the US president’s wife, Michelle Obama, was reported to have ordered one of its catalogues. Several other catalogue companies have been fingered, including Freemans, Argos and Littlewoods.

Also under fire for failing to save paper are the Swedish home furnishing giant, IKEA; the supermarkets Morrisons, Somerfield and Sainsburys; Bauer, which publishes Bella, Heat and FHM; and Future, which publishes computer gaming magazines like XBox 360.

Some of the companies have leapt to their own defence, arguing that their paper is sourced from sustainable forests and recyclable. But consumers have expressed frustration at the mountains of junk mail and waste paper they create.

The average British household is bombarded by 650 items of junk mail every year. The UK consumes four times more paper per person than the world average, and paper production damages forests, pollutes water and helps disrupt the climate.