A BBC Disclosure Investigation announced yesterday (16 June 2025) that "Up to 100 truckloads of Scotland's waste will be moved each day to England" after the Scottish landfill ban comes into effect at the end of 2025.

Scotland is planning to ban the landfilling of Biodegradable Municipal Waste (BMW) from 31 December 2025. The purpose of this ban is to:

• reduce waste landfilled by directing residual waste to alternative treatment;
• extract remaining resource value from the residual waste stream;
• reduce greenhouse gas emissions from landfilling biodegradable waste.

SEPA, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, have defined BWM as:

“Mixed waste and separately collected waste from households, including paper and cardboard, glass, metals, plastics, bio-waste, wood, textiles, packaging, waste electrical and electronic equipment, waste batteries and accumulators, and bulky waste, including mattresses and furniture, mixed waste and separately collected waste from other sources, where such waste is similar in nature and composition to waste from households, but does not include waste from production, agriculture, forestry, fishing, septic tanks and sewage network and treatment, including sewage sludge, end-of-life vehicles or waste generated by construction and demolition activities.”

However, the Scottish government has acknowledged that existing incinerators in Scotland do not have sufficient capacity to meet this extra demand. Therefore, the Scottish government are said to be negotiating temporary "bridging contracts" with Energy from Waste plants in England.

David Balmer, a waste expert from ERS Remediation, told the Disclosure programme:

 "You're looking at the equivalent of between 80 and 100 trucks minimum running seven days a week to take this material to a facility in England or abroad."

This increase in truck emissions will counteract the reduce in emissions caused by less landfilling, calling into question the efficacy of the ban.