By Lucy Ashton
Scottish Liberal Democrat climate emergency spokesperson Liam McArthur MSP has today warned that the Scottish Government isn’t doing enough to lower the rates of landfill, after new statistics revealed that over 850,000 tonnes of Biodegradable Municipal Waste is still being disposed in landfill despite an upcoming ban.
New SEPA figures show that 3.2 million tonnes of waste were disposed of to landfill across 43 permitted landfill sites in 2021. Of this, 856,000 tonnes was Biodegradable Municipal Waste, which is the type of waste that the Scottish Government is soon due to ban from landfill.
A ban on disposing BMW in landfill was originally scheduled to come into force in 2021, however this commitment has been hit by a series of delays. The ban is now scheduled to come into force four years late in 2025.
Mr McArthur, right, said: “These figures pose an obvious question about what this SNP/Green Coalition plans to do with the excess waste it seeks to ban.
“When the landfill bans comes into place, it looks inevitable that much of the waste will simply be shipped south of the border. Indeed, Lorna Slater has already admitted that this is a possibility.
“Carrying lorryloads of rubbish to be landfilled just beyond Berwick is even worse for the environment than landfilling it here due to the emissions generated by those journeys. If this was happening in reverse, SNP/Green Ministers would be up in arms.
“Time and again, this SNP/Green government has been shown to be big on promises but short on delivery. The same is true on the environment. Scottish Liberal Democrats believe in the benefits of pooling and sharing between our family of nations, but that shouldn’t involve sending Scotland’s rubbish to be land-filled across the border.”
Picture: Dalmoak refuse station on Renton Road, where waste is taken from Dumbarton.
ENDS