Simon Baddeley, a manager at the company who helped negotiate the contract, said Biffa had discussed the potential for delays at Circularity Scotland, but proceeded on the assumption it would launch as planned in August 2023.
A Scottish government risk review shown to the court dating from June 2022 suggested that officials were also concerned about whether Circularity Scotland – an “extremely young business” – would be ready to manage a scheme with a turnover of £500m.
Listing the “delivery confidence” level as “amber/red”, the paper described getting the system up and running as a “massively ambitious undertaking”.
It said the government retained a “strong commitment” to the scheme but said the review team felt a “fully functioning and compliant” deposit return initiative “cannot be in operation for the revised delivery date in August 2023”.
Mr Harris said: “There was a great number of complexities and unresolved issues to the scheme.
“But from the perspective of Circularity Scotland, our understanding was that the scheme was the law – from August 2023 our members had to comply with that law or face enforcement action.
“It was not a case that we had any option of derailing the scheme, we had to do whatever it took to make sure we had done enough to go live.”