The Scottish government yesterday announced the launch of two new funds, promising up to £500,000 of investment for new technologies that will help the country meet its goal of establishing a zero-waste economy.

The government-backed Zero Waste Scotland initiative said the two innovation funds are now open for applications and will be targeting projects that either deliver innovations in product and packaging design, or promote innovative resource recovery technologies, including systems for extracting valuable metals from electronic equipment.

A spokeswoman told BusinessGreen that £200,000 will be made available through the product and packaging fund, while the remaining £300,000 has been earmarked for the waste recovery fund.

She added that the organisation is inviting formal funding applications from interested parties.

Environment secretary Richard Lochhead welcomes the launch of the new fund, predicting the investment will help the country meet its high-profile target of ensuring that zero waste goes to landfill.

"Innovation is vital if we are to become a zero-waste society," he said. "New technologies can help us reduce our reliance on natural resources and enable us to create value from the existing materials we use."

Iain Gulland, director of Zero Waste Scotland, urges businesses to sign up to the government's waste-reduction targets and step up efforts to develop business models that promote recycling and reuse of scarce resources.

"Often the opportunities may arise from existing businesses thinking differently about their own inputs and outputs," he observed. "For instance, we are seeing major electronics firms in Asia taking concerted action to recover precious metals to go back into their own supply chain. These are materials we currently have in abundance here in Scotland, still sadly finding their way into landfill sites.

"We want to see businesses in Scotland commit to zero waste and work with us to develop new solutions. That's why we are making major investment available to take forward the best ideas with potential to reduce our waste footprint or get more value from the resources we do consume."