Environment strategy: global environmental impacts of consumption and production
Independent report from the James Hutton Institute on behalf of the Scottish Government on global impacts of consumption and production in Scotland. This research is being used to inform the forthcoming Scottish Government environment strategy.
7. Re-use and Re-cycling
The EU Waste Framework Directive sets out management principles for the prevention of waste, or else its re-use, recycling, recovery or disposal. It requires waste to be managed without endangering the environment, and without risks of environmental impacts on water, air, soil, plants or animals (European Commission, 2023). Reporting for Zero Waste Scotland on indicators for a circular economy, Giraldo et al. (2023) note that “building a circular economy would lower demand for virgin materials and thus reduce the accompanying environmental impacts, improve the security of resource supply chains”.
Findings from the EU show that reductions in the environmental impacts of domestic consumption can be achieved while still “increasing the overall environmental burdens exerted on the global environment” (Sala et al., 2019). Similar findings are reported for Scotland in sectors such as steel, in which case “considerable global carbon savings to be made from steel reprocessing but, if reprocessing is to happen in Scotland, these would be at the expense of territorial climate change targets” (Pratt et al., 2016), and for neodymium (in relation to recycling wind turbines).
Results of analysis of modelling of the recycling of neodymium shows that if all of the wind turbines expected to be required by Scotland in 2030 were to go to recycling using contemporary technologies 7 GgCO2e, or 44% of that would be sent to landfill and using lower technology solutions. Therefore, the environmental footprint is greater when assessed against territorial boundaries than when assessed against consumption boundaries (Pratt et al., 2016).
The study by Pratt et al. (2016) also included steel, based upon the production of the same amount of steel (3 Tg) in Scotland, using an electricity mix based largely on renewable sources, compared with those from a plant in Poland using a largely fossil fuel based electricity mix. The authors report that Poland is a ‘common location for export of Scottish scrap steel’. Their analysis shows the level of carbon emissions associated with the types of technology which can be assumed to be used in Scotland compared to waste handling in other destinations. Smith and Wentworth (2022) estimate that steel making, whether from iron ore or recycling accounts for approximately 12% of global coal consumption per year, contributing to approximately 8% of the world’s CO2 per year (Hoffmann et al., 2020; Smith and Wentworth, 2022). Haque (2022) estimates that mining and processing 1 tonne of iron ore produces 11.9 kg CO2e GHG emissions. A particular point of Pratt et al. (2016) is that the “considerable global carbon savings to be made from steel reprocessing but, if reprocessing is to happen in Scotland, these would be at the expense of territorial climate change targets.”
In their study of the potential environmental impacts of onshore and offshore wind turbines, Farina and Anctil (2022) state that they do not take into account greater levels of recycling. They anticipate innovation in materials and manufacturing will improve the recyclability of wind turbine blades by use of a thermoplastic resin, which easier to melt and recycle than fiberglass ( NREL, 2021). They also note that as fiberglass is a composite material it is difficult to separate and recycle, and that the solution used at present for the end-of-life of the blades is to place them in landfill.
The International Tin Research Institute (2017) describes a transition towards lead free solder in response to the European Union Directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment (European Parliament and The Council of the European Union, 2003). They note that the proportion of solder which was lead (40%) was removed from those products and the proportion of tin content was increased from approximately 60% to 95%. Such a transition addresses some key concerns, notably relating to human health, with a trade-off on some forms, or locations, of environmental impacts.
The findings by Conde et al. (2023) show that by shifting away from high-impact imports, Scotland would reduce the environmental impacts which would be experienced abroad by decreasing extraction, pollution, emissions and waste. Examples of products identified as suitable for transitioning to domestic production are sand and clay, industrial machinery and equipment, construction materials, chemicals, timber, cattle and cattle meat, and natural gas and related services.
However, the export of waste can lead to adverse environmental impacts in importing countries. Defra (2018), setting out a strategy for waste and recycling in England, notes that the "... current system favours the export of packaging waste for recycling.” A risk was identified of UK recycling businesses being “disadvantaged by waste exports which do not meet our environmental and accreditation standards.” They also note there are “different national interpretations of waste regulations for the same material and legal ambiguities around the status of reprocessed materials hamper cross-border trade in secondary resources.”
The Basel Convention 1989 (UNEP, 1989) set out controls on transboundary movement of hazardous waste, aiming to reduce such movement to a minimum consistent with their environmentally sound management; treating and disposing of wastes to as close as possible to source of generation, and to minimise generation of wastes (quantity and potential hazard). The Convention has evolved, with changes including regarding the export of plastic waste (from 1st January 2021). These included clarification of when and how the Convention applies to waste being exported (UNEP, 2019).
The European Union has a system to supervise and control shipments of waste within its borders, and with signatories of the Basel Convention (UNEP, 1989), under Regulation (EC) No 1013/2006 on shipments of waste. It is developing a proposal for strengthening controls of exports of waste (European Parliament and The Council of The European Union, 2021) under the auspices of the EU Green Deal. One aim of the proposed new regulation is to ensure that the EU does not export its waste challenges to third countries, to which the Scottish Environment Strategy is likely to have similarities.
Subsequent to signing the Berne Convention and its amendments, the United Kingdom adopted Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations 2007, which provides details of the UK procedures, offences, penalties and relevant enforcement authorities. The UK Plan for Shipments of Waste sets out the policy of the UK Government and national administrations on shipments of waste for disposal to and from the United Kingdom (Defra, 2012).
Non-hazardous waste, considered to be of low risk to the environment (under the Shipments of Waste Regulations) to EU/OECD countries and some non-OECD countries is categorised as ‘green waste’. Waste which is hazardous or contains hazardous and non-hazardous components is categorised as ‘amber waste’. Data provided by SEPA on the quantities of waste exports from Scotland (SEPA, 2024) shows that the combined quantity of waste exported from Scotland in 2023 was 1.572 m tonnes[3], up from 1.46 m tonnes in 2022. Of that waste, in 2023 32% was to Europe or the rest of the world, down from 40% in 2022. Within the UK, in 2023, 65% of all waste (by weight) was exported to England, up from 56% in 2022, followed by Northern Ireland (3.3%, down from 3.8%) and Wales (0.3% in 2022 and 2023). Figures for TFS for 2022 show that of the waste materials exported, the significant majority were metals (72.9%), paper (16.7%), and glass, (7%). Beyond the UK, in 2022, the highest volume of exports of waste, by weight, was to Spain (82,703 tonnes), followed by the Netherlands (59,594 tonnes), India (58,869 tonnes), Portugal (42,400 tonnes) and Malaysia (31,933 tonnes). Most exports of waste products were to multiple countries. For example, waste metals were exported to 19 different countries, paper to 15 countries, and plastic to 11 countries. Some waste products were exported to only one country (e.g. tyres to India). Some single countries are the most significant recipients of exports (e.g. 50.6% of waste paper exports to Malaysia; 29.9% of metals to Spain). No further details are available of the composition of the waste materials (e.g. types of paper and card such as magazines, shiny paper).
The recovery and recycling of paper and card enables materials to be used approximately 5 to 7 times (American Forest and Paper Association, 2024). Progressively, the fibres get shorter and are of less value for use in products, with non-fibrous components to save raw material costs at the stage of paper production. As of 2014, Keranen and Ervasti (2014) estimated that in the production of paper, the share of virgin non-fibrous component is 43% and recycled non-fibrous component is 57%.
Paper and card are recovered in Scotland, some processed domestically and the rest exported, with 82.8% going to eight countries in the Global South. The processing of these materials (e.g. deinking, pulping) will lead to recycled products (e.g. paper, card), and materials that emerge as waste, or become integral to recycled products.
Ferrera et al. (2023) report that the majority of waste generated by the paper industry is a result of recycled paper production, in the form of paper waste sludge and pulper rejects. Reject materials include plastics, lumps of waste fibres, metals, sand, glass, and chemicals.
The recycling process produces large quantities of waste material which creates challenges for treatment and disposal, such as tackling adhesives that do not dissolve in water, in line with environmental regulations (Keränen and Ervasti, 2014). Singh et al. (2022) reviewed knowledge about pollutants of paper mill wastewater and their toxic effects in environment. They conclude that the pulp and paper industry discharges “recalcitrant organic compounds such as fatty acids, resin acids, dioxins, furans, phenols, and biocides, etc., which make the paper mill wastewater toxic to aquatic flora and fauna”, with estrogenic and androgenic effects on a variety of aquatic organisms. They also note environmental impacts on air pollution, with toxic effects on living organisms due to gases released into the atmosphere.
A literature review by Pivnenko et al. (2015) identified a list of approximately 10,000 chemicals which could potentially be present in paper products. Of those, 157 were classified as hazardous, and 51 were identified as “critical as they were likely to remain in the solid matrix during paper recycling and thereby end up in new products based on recycled fibres.” Lowe et al. (2021), in a study for the US EPA, identified 733 chemicals with a greater occurrence in recycled compared to virgin materials.
Pivnenko et al. (2015) conclude that the growth of recycling could, “potentially lead to accumulation or un-intended spreading of chemical substances contained in paper, e.g. by introducing chemicals contained in waste paper into the recycling loop.” Sources of such substances could be from chemicals used in the deinking process, which also produces large quantities of waste. They observe a risk that as almost half the chemicals identified (24) “are classified as persistent and potentially bio-accumulating, this may pose a risk for consumers.”
Locations where potential environmental impacts may be realised can be expected to include areas to which recovered paper was exported, of which Malaysia is significant in Scotland’s exports. However, no direct evidence has been obtained of such an outcome from the chain of exports originating from Scotland. More in-depth reviews would be required to identify the potential range of environmental impacts which could arise from recycling chains that include exports from Scotland.