Waste Reprocessing Infrastructure in Scotland

Appendix 5 – Glossary and Definitions

BSI PAS 100 / 110 - A national compost benchmark that specifies the minimum requirements for the process of composting, the selection of material from which compost is made, and standards for the compost product quality. PAS 100 is applicable to composting facilities while PAS 110 is applicable to anaerobic digestion facilities. The use of this standard to improve the quality of compost in Scotland became part of Scottish Government policy in 2011, with 2014 being the first year it has been applied to the household waste official statistics. For 2011 – 2013 the wastes that met the PAS 100/110 standard was modelled to produce a back series.

C&D Waste - Waste from the construction and demolition industry.

C&I Waste - Waste from commercial and industrial sources. Includes waste from business and industrial premises in Scotland, but excludes waste from the construction and demolition industry.

Civic Amenity Site - Often referred to as Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) are facilities provided by local authorities where householders can legally dispose of their own household waste.

CoP - Code of Practice.

DRS - Deposit Return Scheme

Dry Recyclable Waste - Dry recyclable waste is legally defined in Section 75(7A) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990(e) (as amended by The Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012) as controlled waste that is: glass; metals; plastics; paper; or, card (including cardboard).

Dry Mixed Recyclate (DMR) - Dry Mixed Recyclate (DMR) is considered as waste that consists of two or more of the ‘dry recyclable waste’ materials mixed together. MRFs also treat separately collected dry recyclable waste where multiple types of one waste stream (for example plastics) are sorted into their individual grades.

EPR - Extended Producer Responsibility

EWC Code - European Waste Catalogue code.

Hazardous waste - Waste with hazardous properties which may render it harmful to human health or the environment. Hazardous waste is also called Special Waste in Scotland as defined in the Special Waste Regulation 1996 (and amendments).

HDPE - High Density Polyethylene

Material Recovery Facility (MRF) Plastics Recovery Facility (PRF) or Plastics Recycling Facility - Legally defined as ‘a facility where dry recyclable waste is treated in order to separate that waste into a single dry waste stream or streams’ (The Waste (Recyclate Quality) (Scotland) Regulations 2015). MRFs accept co-mingled and separately collected dry recyclable waste, which is sorted into single streams using a mix of technology such as magnets, optical scanners and eddy currents, and hand picking lines from conveyors. Operational logistics can vary widely depending on the MRF, and this impacts the type of material they target and the degree of separation that takes place. Material outputs from MRFs are generally defined as grades and relate to different material types for example: Clear PET bottles, Mixed Plastic or Aluminium. Some MRFs target very specific recyclate grades, whereas others target mixed grades. Furthermore, some MRFs rely on other downstream sorting facilities to undertake additional segregation of material the MRF cannot process.

Similar to a MRF a PRF sorts and grades mixed plastic fractions into separate fractions or polymers. The facility may also process materials (washing and then grading / flaking / extrusion) to produce materials that are of high enough quality to be used as a feedstock for plastics processing.

Other diversion from landfill - Waste managed by methods outside of recycling, recovery or disposal. For 2023 this comprised exclusively waste composted at facilities not accredited to the BSI PAS 100/110 standard.

PET - Polyethylene Terephthalate

PP - Polypropylene

PRN - Packaging Recovery Note

PTT - Pots, tubs and trays

Recycling rate - Waste recycled as a percentage of all waste managed. Note that total waste generated is not used to calculate the recycling rate as it does not equal total waste managed due to differences in methodologies used to calculate the data.

Waste disposed - Waste landfilled and waste inputs to incineration facilities that have not been demonstrated to meet the R1 energy recovery efficiency specified in the EU Waste Framework Directive.

Waste generated - Waste that arises directly from Scottish businesses and households during the reporting year. C&I waste generated are estimated using data from licensed/permitted site returns and complex exempt activity return. C&D waste generated is estimated using data from licensed/permitted site returns, complex exempt activity returns and aggregate survey data. Household waste generated is taken from all 32 Scottish local authority returns using the web-based reporting tool WasteDataFlow (WDF). Waste generated only includes waste that arises directly from the business, for example waste that is taken in by a business from another business and subsequently disposed is excluded from the waste generation.

Waste disposed by incineration - Waste inputs to incineration facilities that have not been demonstrated to meet the R1 energy recovery efficiency specified in the EU Waste Framework Directive.

Waste landfilled - Waste that is disposed of to landfill sites instead of being recycled or recovered. This includes incinerator ash, plus any recycling and composting rejects that occur during collection, sorting or further treatment that are landfilled.

Waste managed - Includes all wastes recycled, disposed, recovered and managed by other management within the relevant reporting year.

Waste recovered by incineration - Waste inputs to co-incineration facilities and to incineration facilities that incinerate mixed municipal waste and have been demonstrated to meet the R1 energy recovery efficiency specified in the EU Waste Framework Directive.

Waste recycled - Recyclable materials that have been recycled, prepared for reuse and biodegradable materials that have been composted or anaerobically digested to quality standards set by PAS 100/110.

WFAS - Waste from all sources. This includes waste from commercial and industrial sources, construction and demolition sources and household sources.