Before devolution, Scottish Office ministers relied on professional advice from their staff at the Hazard Waste Inspectorate, and a few members of the Scottish Centre Council of the Chartered Institute of Wastes Management (CIWM): experienced senior waste managers employed by Scottish councils who provided advice without fear or favour.

CIWM was also instrumental in setting up the Caledonian Shanks Centre for Waste Management at Glasgow Caledonian University, accessing funds generated by landfill tax receipts. It was later re-named the Caledonian Environment Centre (CEC).

When it became obvious that Scotland had no chance of meeting the waste diversion targets in the EEC’s Landfill Directive, the Scottish Parliament offered additional ring-fenced funding to allow the 32 councils expand their existing waste recycling schemes.

Coincidentally, CEC had developed a financial model that predicted how much waste any council could recycle, including transport, treatment and disposal costs.

Parliament then allocated funding to individual councils using this information, also providing additional funding to enhance CEC’s work. This resulted in Scotland’s waste recycling performances soaring from under 5% in 2000, to over 45% by 2006. Scotland was leading the rest of the UK and CEC employed around 35 people, including students working towards academic awards as well as doing research work.

But it all slowed down in 2007/8 after the new First Minster decided to remove the ring-fence from the recycling funding and allowed councils to use it for delivering other municipal services. Within a year or two, the university took the view that waste management didn’t really fit in with their aspirations for its future direction.