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DEFRA announces new packaging waste recycling targets
DEFRA has confirmed that packaging waste recovery and recycling targets for Great Britain will increase from April 2008 onwards.
Recycling targets for all packaging materials have been increased, with targets for plastics being 26% in 2008, 27% by 2009 and 29% by 2010. Across all types of packaging waste, the targets are 72% in 2008, 73% by 2009 and 74% by 2010. The revised targets are intended to ensure that the UK continues to meets the EU Directive minimum targets of recycling at least 60% of packaging waste in 2008.
John Simmons, CEO of Recoup, noted that PRN values did not significantly reduce at the end of 2007, suggesting that the degree of surplus PRNs usually witnessed was less obvious as a result of the supply v demand of PRNs being more in balance.
The higher recovery rates achieved last year for packaging would, in part, account for this, but also a number of accredited reprocessors were known not to have renewed accreditation in 2007. This failure to renew accreditation was due to the level of resource required to meet EA requirements and the associated cost of accreditation which was considered not to match the value returned through PRN sales.
Organisations including Recoup had through the Defra ‘consultation on recycling targets for packaging for 2008 and thereafter period urged the Government to embrace a more progressive application of cost associated with EA accreditation. The cost of accreditation for reprocessors/exporters handling up to 400 tpa is £500 p.a, but this rises sharply for larger reprocessors/exporters handling above 400 tpa to £2,590 p.a.
With a number of reported new UK based plastics reprocessing facilities coming online in 2008, and continuing increases in bottle collections, it is difficult to conclude that it will be anything but a comfortable year for achieving the new 26% plastic target for 2008. With a marked step change in available UK reprocessing capacity some anxiety exists that the level of collections will not provide these new facilities with sufficient input material to allow them to be cost effective in their early years.
Simmons notes that whilst good progress has been made to reach an overall recycling rate for plastic bottles of some 25%, the drive for increased plastics packaging recovery needs to be vigorously pursued.
He added: "Recoup is involved in helping to find ways to recycle the other plastics packaging formats (non bottle) such as pots, tubs and trays. Some authorities have already embarked on collecting these plastics items but end markets seem unclear. In many cases these collected pots, tubs and trays are included with the baled bottles, risking price reductions/rejection or, alternatively, they are removed at the MRF or at the plastics reprocessor as contaminants. It is vitally important that end markets are identified before collection schemes include such products and that the local MRF is capable of sorting the wider plastics packaging input stream."
Overall, in 2008 the new targets are set to save over 8m tonnes of CO2 from being emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere. DEFRA expect the increase in targets over the next two years to realise a further saving of 258,097 tonnes of CO2 in 2009 and an additional 285,436 tonnes in 2010.
Source: www.recoup.org
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