1.5 Current Waste Management Practice within Tayside

Future plans for the management of waste must be set within the context of the existing waste management situation in Tayside. This is presented in the May 2001 Strategic Waste Management Baseline Assessment (SWMBA) report.

This assessment provides detailed descriptions and data on current waste management practices, flows and sites and demonstrates that Tayside has a relatively self-contained system for the management of household, commercial and industrial wastes. However certain specific wastes are either imported or exported for specialist treatment or disposal. Examples of this include clinical waste, organic waste for application to agricultural land and special wastes.

In common with the rest of Scotland, Tayside has traditionally relied on landfill as the primary method of waste disposal. There are two strategically important landfill sites; Restenneth, Forfar, in Angus and Binn Landfill, Glenfarg, in Perth & Kinross. Both sites are expected to continue to accept waste until around 2013. Dundee City also has the DERL (Dundee Energy Recycling Limited) energy from waste plant able to combust up to 120,000 tonnes of wastes annually. Recycling and composting of wastes is increasingly an important element of waste management in Tayside.

Table 1.3 summarises the numbers and types of waste management facilities within Tayside that have current waste management licences.

Table 1.3 - Current Licensed Waste Management Infrastructure

Additions to the current infrastructure will be required in order to cope with increasing volumes of waste arising and the shift in the management of waste up the waste hierarchy. Sections 3 and 4 deal in detail with MSW and non-MSW wastes respectively and will set out the future infrastructure needs of these waste streams where possible. Where this is not possible, a process will be established to identify future infrastructure needs.

1.5.1 Municipal Solid Waste Management

Angus, Dundee City and Perth & Kinross Councils have a history of being at the forefront of recycling in Scotland with all achieving a recycling rate (including composting) greater than 10% in 1999. This was twice the national rate. A variety of waste materials are collected, sorted and stored in Tayside prior to onward transportation to re-processors where the wastes are recycled. All three councils compost green wastes in open windrows and collect paper, metal and glass for reprocessing. In addition there are a number of other organisations involved in recycling of waste in the Tayside Area. There is however little waste prevention activity in the area currently.

A summary of the current arrangements for the management of MSW in Tayside is given in Table 1.4. This shows that landfill is the most significant final waste management route for this waste type. It also shows there are existing collections of wastes for recycling from both the kerbside and mini recycling points taking place across Tayside.

Table 1.4 - Summary of Current Municipal Solid Waste Management

Reference to 2001 above relates to the financial year 2001/2.

Current Contracts
The current contractual arrangements in place between local authorities and private contractors will influence the future waste management arrangements. Table 1.5 summarises the existing contractual arrangements between Tayside local authorities and private contractors.

Table 1.5 - Current MSW contract

1.5.2 Non-municipal Solid Wastes

At present, there is limited quantitative data on commercial, industrial, construction and demolition wastes currently arising within Tayside. Management of these wastes are primarily dealt with by the private sector. Significant quantities of these wastes are landfilled, however increasing quantities are being recovered and reused. SEPA are leading work to establish a better information base and methodology to develop a strategy for managing non-MSW streams. This strategy is described in chapter 4.