The new laws will allow councils to give penalties to rule breakers
NATS were last night urged to simplify muddled recycling rules — as MSPs voted to fine Scots for putting trash in the wrong bins.
Lawmakers backed laws which will let local authorities slap persistent rubbish rulebreakers with fixed penalties.
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Ministers say the tough measures are needed because nearly a fifth of items in recycling bins are put there wrongly.
But critics predicted more “confusion” — two years after we revealed a mishmash of waste colour codes and rules across Scotland’s 32 council areas.
We told how fed-up Scots faced using up to eight different containers amid anger over the drop-off in the frequency of bin pick-ups.
And as the Circular Economy Bill last night passed its first hurdle, ministers were slammed for failing to commit to demands for a “uniform kerbside bin collection approach” across the country.
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Net zero committee convener Edward Mountain insisted: “It shouldn’t be too much to ask to have the same system of coloured bins across Scotland.”
Greens minister Lorna Slater was “pleased to hear” of support for standardised recycling but didn’t say if the calls would be heeded.
Meanwhile, Tory MSP Maurice Golden warned of uncertainty over how fixed penalties for people who “persistently and deliberately do not comply” with recycling rules will be policed.
He warned: “We don’t know how fines will work for those in tenement buildings who share bins. There are no safeguards to ensure rubbish added by a passer-by won’t see residents penalised.”
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Scots could also be charged 20p for using takeaway coffee cups under the “latte levy” first mooted by Nats in 2019.
And Mr Golden blasted: “A coffee-cup tax in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.”
The new laws will also ban the disposal of shops’ unsold food and hammer fly-tipping plus littering from cars.
But Labour’s Sarah Boyack called for “more detail” and changes to deliver a “Circular Economy Bill, not just a Recycling Bill”.
