Single-use packaging is targeted in Islands Green Recovery Programme
Scottish island communities have been bearing witness to the incredible damage ocean plastic pollution is having on our marine ecosystems and shorelines.
Now, with the Islands Green Recovery Programme, they can play a leading role in developing solutions.
The £2million programme, announced in the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government 2020-21, is designed to inspire locally-led green projects designed to help support the islands recovery from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
As part of this, Zero Waste Scotland, which will also receive match funding from the European Regional Development Fund, will reduce single-use grocery packaging across the islands. At present, these communities have to bear the double burden of dealing with importing single-use items and then the shipping off of waste.
Accounting for approximately 13% (315,000 tonnes/year) of all household waste in Scotland, this equates to roughly 130kg of single-use grocery packaging per household and generates an estimated 650,000 tonnes of global production emissions per year. Single-use grocery packaging is also a significant source of litter.
While Scotland continues to take action to improve recycle rates for single-use packaging waste, the greatest environmental benefits occur from avoiding single-use packaging through prevention and reuse. The Islands Green Recovery Programme Refillery Fund will allow organisations and businesses in island communities to gain funding to offer groceries in packaging-free refill dispensers.
Further information here
