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Circular Economy Business Support, provided by Zero Waste Scotland, continues to provide support for textile businesses wishing to develop circular models. Scottish Enterprise also recently published its Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Guide ,

which provides an overview of the range of support available to new and growing companies in Scotland including incubators, accelerators, specialist industry programmes, co-working spaces and networking organisations. This support is available to any early-stage innovative business.

The evidence gathered through the call for evidence will help inform future policy on how to reduce the use of single-use food containers and other single-use items in order to align, where we are able to do so and in a manner that contributes towards maintaining and advancing standards, with the EU Directive on single-use plastics and to tackle Scotland’s throwaway culture.

Enforcement of the Environmental Protection (Single-use Plastic Products) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 is the responsibility of local authorities, who have autonomy to allocate the resources available to them based on local needs and priorities. The Scottish Government is providing an additional £793 million of funding to local authorities in 2023-24.

In addition to guidance published on the Scottish Government website in advance of the Regulations, Zero Waste Scotland delivered an awareness raising campaign in the six months prior to the Regulations coming into force to increase business and public awareness of the Regulations. We will continue to support businesses to comply with requirements.

The Circular Economy & Waste Route Map sets out how we intend to deliver our system-wide, comprehensive vision for Scotland's Circular Economy by outlining tangible actions the Scottish Government and others must take to accelerate progress.

The responses to the Route Map consultation have been published, and we are considering this feedback carefully as part of the development of the Route Map, alongside ongoing assessment of impacts. Analysis of the consultation findings will be published in due course.

We intend to consult on a draft Route Map, before bringing forward a final Waste Route Map later this year.

The first stage of the Circular Textile Fund is the submission of an Expression of Interest, a high-level overview of the project, and the 5 week timescale provides a suitable amount of time to prepare this. Zero Waste Scotland runs weekly webinars during this period to support applicants. Feedback received from applicants, following round 1, was that increasing the time available for the second stage submission phase, where detailed information is needed, would be welcomed. Accordingly, Zero Waste Scotland extended time for the second stage of submissions to 8 weeks.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-18098 on 5 June 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The purpose of the Scottish Government’s call for evidence was to gather evidence to inform policy development on how to reduce consumption of single-use food containers and other single use items. All responses to the call for evidence have been published, where consent was given to do so, here: . The Scottish Government will publish an analysis of the call for evidence this year.

Circularity Scotland is a private not for profit company. Decisions regarding advanced payments is a matter for them and it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to comment in such commercial arrangements between private companies.

One of the many factors the Scottish Government took into account when considering the timing of launch of the Deposit Return Scheme was feedback from stakeholders. We are grateful to all businesses for the investment they have made in preparing for the launch of the deposit return scheme and this investment will be important for the success of the scheme when it launches.

Zero Waste Scotland is progressing two life cycle analysis reports of the impact of secondary steel production as an update to the published carbon assessment. The other three reports referred to in the answer to question S6W-08343 have been amalgamated into one report. These reports are all expected to be published in 2023-24.

Curriculum for Excellence is a flexible curriculum with defined experiences and outcomes that allow for teaching and learning of a very wide range of topics. This ensures that schools are able to deliver a curriculum that is best suited to their learners in their circumstances and local context.

Learning for Sustainability, which is an entitlement for all learners, provides the general curricular theme on sustainable development education, social justice, climate change, global citizenship, children’s rights, equality and outdoor learning.

There are experiences and outcomes across the curriculum that cover learning on material extraction and end product use such us: Sciences SCN 4-04b: “Through investigation I can explain the formation and use of fossil fuels and contribute to discussions on the responsible use and conservation of finite resources”; Social Studies SOC 4-08a: “I can discuss the sustainability of key natural resources and analyse the possible implications for human activity”; and Technology TCH 2-06a “I can analyse how lifestyles can impact on the environment and Earth’s resources and can make suggestions about how to live in a more sustainable way”.