Strengthening approach to household recycling collection services

2. Responding to this consultation

We are inviting responses to this consultation by 17 June 2025.

Please respond to this consultation using the Scottish Government's consultation platform, Citizen Space. You can view and respond to this consultation online at https://consult.gov.scot/environment-forestry/changes-to-waste-management-services/ You can save and return to your responses while the consultation is still open. Please ensure that consultation responses are submitted before the closing date of 17 June 2025.

If you are unable to respond online, please complete the Respondent Information Form (see 'Handling your Response' below) to: circulareconomy@gov.scot

2.1 Handling your response

If you respond using Citizen Space (http://consult.scotland.gov.uk/), you will be directed to the Respondent Information Form. Please indicate how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be published.

If you are unable to respond via Citizen Space, please complete and return the Respondent Information Form. If you ask for your response not to be published, we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Government is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004, and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under that legislation for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

2.2 Handling and processing of data

Purpose - Why do we need your information?

We are seeking information likely held by stakeholders to support decisions around extending the ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal wastes to biodegradable non-municipal wastes as well as other wastes to encourage management of these wastes further up the waste hierarchy.

Anonymised data may also be used to support the development of a Residual Waste Pan, as set out in the Circular Economy and Waste consultation.

Data categories – What data are we collecting?

Personal data

We will process the following information about you, if you volunteer it:

• name
• address
• email address
• phone number
• job title and employer (where applicable)
• your opinions and data/information related to questions in the Consultation.

Special category data

The Consultation does not request any Special Category Data. However, it is also possible that Special Category Data (such as information on health conditions) relating to the respondent (you) or a third party, may be volunteered as part of the response to the Consultation. Any of the categories of special category data may be processed if such data is volunteered as part of the Consultation.

2.3 Processing and legal basis

For the purposes of the UK-GDPR, we will process the information that you include in your correspondence. The personal information collected may relate to you, other members of the public, parliamentarians, and representatives of organisations or companies who respond to this Consultation.

The legal basis for processing this data is ‘public task’ (Data Protection Act 2018 Article 6 (1) (e)). The processing of the data is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest. For the purpose of this Consultation, the task is inviting evidence on a departmental policies or proposals or obtaining opinion data in order to develop recommendations for good effective government policies.

Where special category data is volunteered by you and it is not relevant to the review and of substantial public interest, we will delete this data within 1 month of the closing date of the Consultation. Where special data is processed, the legal basis for processing it is the processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown, or a government department. In this case, this function is consulting on departmental policies or proposals, or obtaining opinion data, to develop good effective policies.

2.4 How we keep your information secure

Information held by the Scottish Government and its representatives is managed effectively by secure systems on secure servers.

Your information will not be shared outside the UK.

2.5 Who we share your responses with

The personal data you send us can be viewed by authorised people in the Scottish Government, supplier organisations, agencies and public bodies. This may include a supplier who can assist in reviewing and summarising the evidence gathered.

Information provided in response to this Consultation may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes. These are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR).

If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, under the FOIA, there is a statutory Code of Practice with which public authorities must comply and which deals with, amongst other things, obligations of confidence.

It would, therefore, be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential. If we receive a request for disclosure of the information we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding.

Where information about respondents is not published, it may be shared with officials within other public bodies and our contractors involved in this Consultation process to assist us in developing the policies to which it relates.

2.6 Data retention – how long will we keep your data?

Personal information in responses to Consultations will generally be published and therefore retained indefinitely as a historic record under the Public Records Act 1958.

Personal information in responses that is not published will be retained for three calendar years after the Consultation has concluded.

2.7 Your rights

You have the right to:

• access to any personal data we hold about you, by making a Subject Access Request (SAR).
• request that any inaccuracies in your personal data are rectified without delay.
• request that your personal data are erased if there is no longer a justification for them to be processed.
• in certain circumstances (for example, where accuracy is contested), request that the processing of your personal data is restricted.
• object to the processing of your personal data where it is processed for direct marketing purposes.
• data portability, which allows your data to be copied or transferred from one IT environment to another.

More about your rights is available on the Information Commissioner's website.

In some circumstances we may not be able to comply with your request. This is because some of these rights are conditional and can only be applied in certain circumstances and/or where there is no compelling reason to continue to process your personal data.

2.8 How to submit a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR)

To request access to personal data that Scottish Government holds about you, contact: dpa@gov.scot.

Complaints about the use of personal data

If you have any concerns about the use of your personal data, please contact us via this mailbox: DataProtectionOfficer@gov.scot

If we are unable to address your concerns to your satisfaction, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, the UK’s independent regulator for data protection. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Email: casework@ico.org.uk

Any complaint to the Information Commissioner is without prejudice to your right to seek redress through the courts.

Contact details

The data controller for any personal data collected as part of this Consultation is Scottish Government.

The contact details for Scottish Government’s Data Protection Team are: dpa@gov.scot.

2.9 Next steps in the process

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence. Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public, and after we have checked that they abide by our Terms of Use, responses will be made available to the public at http://consult.scotland.gov.uk. If you use Citizen Space to respond, you will receive a copy of your response via email.

2.10 Comments and complaints

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to: circulareconomy@gov.scot

2.11 Scottish Government consultation process

Consultation is an essential part of the policy-making process. It gives us the opportunity to consider your opinion and expertise on a proposed area of work.

You can find all our consultations online: http://consult.scotland.gov.uk. Each consultation details the issues under consideration, as well as a way for you to give us your views, either online, by email or by post.

Responses will be analysed and used as part of the decision-making process, along with a range of other available information and evidence. We will publish a report of this analysis for every consultation. Depending on the nature of the consultation exercise the responses received may:

• indicate the need for policy development or review;
• inform the development of a particular policy;
• help decisions to be made between alternative policy proposals; and
• be used to finalise legislation before it is implemented.

While details of particular circumstances described in a response to a consultation exercise may usefully inform the policy process, consultation exercises cannot address individual concerns and comments, which should be directed to the relevant public body.