"Do we really need that?" It is the question guaranteed to put a dampener on a family shopping trip, occasionally contributing to marital tensions. It's also a question now being asked by the Scottish government agency Zero Waste Scotland, intruding on the free-born right of every Scot to buy and own more stuff. Globalisation has driven this faster. Lower-cost manufacturing in distant lands, using high-quality processes, with ever more flexible plastic moulding, electronic processing power, and highly efficient supply chain logistics have brought much more stuff into the range of household budgets. Online shopping makes it easier still to click and have another bit of kit delivered, sometimes within hours, usually with far too much unnecessary packaging. The impact is astonishing when you add it all up and that is what Zero Waste Scotland has been doing in a new report that shows the nation weighs in at more than twice the sustainable level. The concept takes a bit of getting your head around. It adds up all the raw materials we produce in Scotland. Oil features prominently in that accounting, as does timber and food. For much of our industry and our household purchases, we import raw materials and part-finished products such as metals. The UK imports around half its food. Add together all the domestic raw materials with imported materials, and then subtract the oil, food and other products that are exported. Those can be accounted for in other countries' Material Flow Accounts. The result in 2017 looks like 18.4 tonnes per average Scot - four tonnes more than the European average, and more than double the sustainable level for Europe. Northerly countries have higher figures, probably because they need better insulation in buildings and more energy to heat them, plus more layers of clothing. That all adds up. So what is to be done with that number? If we assume it has to come down, the... |