180,000 tonnes of other people's waste dumped in Scotland

Published Date: 31 March 2009
By Jenny Haworth
Environment Correspondent

SCOTLAND disposed of more than 180,000 tonnes of rubbish from outside its borders in a single year, The Scotsman can reveal.
The waste sent to Scotland to be dealt with included contaminated soil, polluted dredging spoils, chemical waste, industrial sludge, scrap metal and asbestos. Almost 70,000 tonnes came from England and was either dumped in landfill, recycled or composted, according to new data from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).Some 35,364 tonnes was disposed of in Lothian and Borders, 12,466 tonnes was sent to Fife, 9,121 tonnes to Glasgow and the Clyde Valley, 3,610 tonnes to Tayside and 2,435 tonnes to the Forth Valley.Across Scotland, up to 94,000 tonnes of waste dumped in landfill came from outside this country, mainly from England and Northern Ireland. This was about 1 per cent of all the rubbish sent to landfill in Scotland.Friends of the Earth (FoE) Scotland said it was a "concern" and that rubbish should be dealt with as close to its site of origin as possible – known as the "proximity principle". Duncan McLaren, the chief executive of FoE Scotland, said: "It's a policy stance of ours and of the Scottish Government to use the proximity principle in terms of dealing with waste. Any amount that has been unnecessarily transported is of concern. "We have in the past commented pretty scathingly about mixed municipal waste coming from Northern Ireland. It shouldn't be transported across the Irish Sea."He said the severity of the problem would depend on how far the waste had been transported. "If it has literally come five miles over the Border, it may be obeying the proximity principle, but if it has come from London and gone to Fife, it is hard to see how it could be."The idea that something that comes from even the north of England needs to go as far as Fife raises questions as to whether the proximity principle is being adhered to."Sepa has published reviews that show the quantities of waste dealt with in each area of Scotland in 2006-7. It is the first time the data have been collected, so it is impossible to know whether the amount of waste from England dumped in Scotland has been increasing or decreasing.The reason rubbish is sent to Scotland could be because landfill companies charge cheaper prices, or because there are facilities to cater for specialist waste such as asbestos or electronics that do not exist near where it was produced.A spokeswoman for Sepa said on some occasions waste was transported so it could be dealt with in more suitable facilities."There are quite large electrical companies in Scotland that, instead of just dumping it, are recycling it and doing something with it," she said.She added some of the waste might not have travelled very far, despite coming from England.