Circular Economy Strategy will create jobs and protect environment

Reacting to launch of “Making Things Last”, the Scottish Government’s strategy on the circular economy, Dr Richard Dixon, Director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said:

“Moving to a circular economy is the next logical step in delivering a Zero Waste Scotland. It will help us use materials more efficiently, reduce climate emissions and create local jobs.

“There are many welcome plans in this strategy from better product design to making more companies fund the recycling of their own products. We particularly welcome the strong new target to reduce the vast quantities of food we currently waste. This will lead to more food recycling but could also mean introducing a French-style rule that supermarkets can’t throw away edible food. The 33% by 2025 target is an ambitious but necessary step to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal on reducing food waste.

“The strategy misses a trick by not making a firm commitment to introducing a deposit systems for packaging. These schemes are popular in other countries and when we get round to it we’ll wonder why we didn’t do it sooner.

“The document mentions incineration as a last resort option but the forward-thinking ideas planned need to be introduced quickly if Scotland is to avoid building a number of new incinerators, which would lock us into wasteful patterns of consumption for decades.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

1. Scottish Government’s Strategy can be found here: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0049/00494471.pdf
2. The Circular Economy is defined as an alternative to a traditional linear economy (make, use, dispose) in which we keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service life.
3. FoES’ response to the Scottish Government’s report on deposit and return systems for packaging: http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/packaging-deposit-scheme
4. FoES has recently launched the ‘Fossil Free Scotland’ campaign which aims to secure a just transition to a 100% renewable, nuclear-free, zero-fossil-fuel Scotland www.fossilfree.scot
5. Friends of the Earth Scotland is:
* Scotland's leading environmental campaigning organisation
* An independent Scottish charity with a network of thousands of supporters and active local groups across Scotland
* Part of the largest grassroots environmental network in the world, uniting over 2 million supporters, 75 national member groups, and some 5,000 local activist groups.
www.foe-scotland.org.uk