Waste management - code of practice on sampling and reporting at materials facilities: consultation document

1. Executive Summary

1. The Scottish Government is seeking views from interested stakeholders on a proposed new Code of Practice on Sampling and Reporting at Materials Facilities.

2. The Code is issued by the Scottish Ministers to provide guidance to operators of materials facilities (MFs) on the discharge of certain duties, specifically those in section 34(2L)(b) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The current Code was issued on 2 March 2015.^[1]

3. The proposed new Code will make some substantial changes from the previous Code. These changes are to support the introduction of extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging from 2025. Packaging EPR is being introduced by the Scottish Government, alongside the other governments of the UK, as part of our work to build a more circular economy and address the global climate emergency.

4. The main changes are: to bring certain bulking facilities into scope (see section 4 of this document); to increase the required sampling frequency for input sampling (section 7); and to introduce new material categories to be sampled and reported (sections 7 and 8).

5. All the substantive changes to the Code were consulted on through the UK-wide consultation on introducing packaging EPR, and set out in the government response published in March 2022.^[2] We have also significantly restructured the Code to allow the new requirements to be easily understood.

6. The purpose of this further consultation with interested stakeholders is to ensure that the proposed new Code, which puts these changes into practice, is clear and avoids unintended consequences. The consultation will run from 26 February to 19 April. We welcome responses from all interested stakeholders and especially local authorities, waste-management companies, and waste-sector trade bodies. We intend to lay the new Code in Parliament in June 2024, with its requirements coming into force from 1 October 2024.