The Scottish Authorities is going through criticism after handing £4 million to a billionaire’s bottled water agency. Emirati tycoon Mahdi Al-Tajir’s Highland Spring acquired the money for a practice depot at his manufacturing facility in Perthshire after claiming it would cut back the carbon footprint of the enterprise.
However bottled water has been criticised as a large and pointless contributor to world warming and plastic air pollution. Labour MSP Neil Bibby mentioned: “It will be important we shift freight from highway to rail as a part of efforts to decarbonise the transportation of products.
“The sums of public cash concerned on this are substantial and the burden for such funding shouldn't at all times fall fully on the taxpayer, significantly once they profit giant corporations making substantial income. There are questions for the Scottish Authorities to reply on the extent of personal funding that was sought and secured for this challenge.”
Al-Tajir is without doubt one of the UK’s richest males, with an estimated fortune of over £1.65billion. He owns the Park Tower Lodge in Knightsbridge, London, and a £250million residence positioned near Buckingham Palace.
The Highland Spring rail freight terminal is designed to take 1000's of HGV journeys off the highway. The agency mentioned virtually half of its inventory dispatched from the bottling plant in Blackford can now be despatched to their primary warehouse by practice, saving 1000's of tons of CO2 yearly.
The ten-year improvement celebrated its first journey in August after being formally opened by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Paperwork launched by freedom of data revealed the depot acquired £4.47million of Scottish Authorities funding from an environmental fund.
That's regardless of a research earlier this 12 months discovering faucet water is 1000's of instances higher for the atmosphere than bottled water. The Barcelona Institute for International Well being discovered it takes 3 times as a lot water to supply a plastic bottle as it may well maintain.
They discovered the impression of a bottle of water slightly than faucet water was 1400 instances worse for ecosystems and 3500 instances worse general for the atmosphere.
A spokesman for the FM mentioned: “The Scottish Authorities invested £4.47million on this challenge. Eradicating greater than 10million lorry miles from Scotland’s roads within the first 10 years of operation will go a protracted approach to bettering the atmosphere.”
Highland Spring mentioned: “The Blackford rail freight facility, in partnership with Transport Scotland, Community Rail and the Scottish Authorities, has been in improvement for over 10 years, with a complete value of £20 million. We admire their assist in delivering this challenge.”
Do not miss the most recent information from round Scotland and past - Signal as much as our day by day e-newsletterright here