Tice condemns Scottish plan to send 600,000 tonnes of rubbish to England
England should reject Scotland's rubbish, Richard Tice has said, after it emerged that up to 100 truckloads a day are to be sent over the border.
The Reform UK deputy leader said it would be 'fair' for Scotland to 'sort its own rubbish' and manage the impact of the SNP's ban on landfill.
Scots would be 'furious' at a situation in which large quantities of English waste had to be shipped north, he said.
It emerged this week that a Scottish government ban on domestic black bin bag waste being sent to landfill from next year would result in about 600,000 tonnes of rubbish being shipped southwards from next year.
Scotland does not have enough incinerators to cope with the surge in demand that the policy will cause. New incinerators and 'energy from waste' facilities that are still being built will not be ready in time.
Scottish councils and commercial waste companies have approached firms in England to negotiate 'bridging contracts'. However, as there is also pressure on incinerator capacity there, much of Scotland's excess rubbish is expected to go to landfill in England instead.
Experts have said that the equivalent of 80 to 100 trucks a day, seven days a week, will be needed to take the waste to England or even farther afield. Some lorries may have to travel for three days, it has been claimed, as there is particular pressure on sites in northern England.
Tice, the Boston and Skegness MP, said: 'Scots would be furious if they were told to take English rubbish. The reverse is also true. Scotland should sort its own rubbish. Fair is fair.'
The SNP government introduced the ban to protect the environment and deliver a 'net-zero society'.
However, critics have pointed to the emissions which are set to be caused as a result of taking waste large distances — it cannot be disposed of in Scotland.
The UK government also wants to eliminate biodegradable waste from landfill. It announced a consultation earlier this year, but there is no firm policy in place south of the border.
Thomas Kerr, the Glasgow councillor who defected from the Conservatives to Reform in January, also said England would be within its rights to refuse to take Scottish waste.
'Like the SNP's disastrous deposit return scheme, this rushed-out policy is unworkable and will put huge pressure on English landfill,' Kerr said.
'At the very least, the SNP should wait till our national incinerator capacity is ready. Otherwise English landfills would be well within their rights to refuse to take this, and every day Scots will be left with the mess.'
It had been hoped that the landfill ban, which was initially due to come into force in 2021 but was delayed due to the Covid pandemic, would coincide with an increase in recycling rates.
However, these have barely shifted in a decade, with Scottish homes recycling 41.6 per cent of their waste in 2013, rising to 43.5 per cent in 2023.
Kim Pratt, the senior circular economy campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: 'By failing to prepare properly for the upcoming landfill ban, the Scottish government has missed an opportunity to move away from the current throwaway society.
'Without immediate action, Scotland will end up burning and exporting much of its waste.
'The solution is for the Scottish government to invest more in reuse and repair, provide better access to recycling services and close the loopholes in its incineration ban as soon as possible.'
Gillian Martin, the SNP's climate action and energy secretary, blamed an 'incineration gap' on 'outside factors' such as inflation and the cost of building new facilities.
The SNP government introduced an effective ban on new incinerators in 2022 but said existing plans for 11 sites could still proceed.
Martin said: 'We've got plans for more incinerators, with energy from waste schemes, to come on in the next year and over the next three years — so it is a temporary situation.'
She added that 'the positive environmental impact of stopping landfills' outweighed the impact of temporary measures to export the rubbish over the border.
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