Relatively unchallenging targets in 2003 caused an oversupply of packaging waste recovery notes (PRNs) through the year, resulting in PRN prices on the open market slumping from £30 a tonne in 2002 to prices as low as £1 a tonne towards the end of 2003.

With less investment going to reprocessors in 2003 because of the low PRN prices, there were concerns that it would be more difficult for the UK to reach the next set of European targets in 2008.

The targets announced for 2004 to 2008 were therefore quite a leap from the 59% overall recovery target and 19% recycling target for the four material streams paper, glass, metals and plastics:

The packaging waste recovery sector broadly welcomed the new targets, calling them "challenging but achievable" since they were based on the recycling performances seen in 2003, rising in a fairly straight line to the European requirement for 2008:

Packaging waste business recovery targets, 2003-08

New components to the UK business targets for packaging waste recovery are separate targets for aluminium and steel - where there had been a single metals target before - and a material specific target for wood. Wood PRNs had previously only counted towards the overall recovery targets.

Another new element was that producers had to carry out a rising proportion of their recovery obligations through recycling rather than Energy from Waste. This means in 2004, 94% of a producer's obligation has to be acquired through material PRNs rather than Energy from Waste PRNs.

This measure has been introduced to safeguard the UK against the possibility that a European Court judgement could disallow municipal Energy from Waste incineration from counting towards Member State recovery targets (see letsrecycle.com story).

Predictions
In calculating its new targets, the government used predictions that the total tonnage of packaging waste generated by the UK would increase as follows:

Of these figures, not all the packaging material will be obligated for recovery/recycling by producers under the PRN system. Companies, for example, that handle less than 50 tonnes of packaging a year, or have a turnover of less than £2 million, have no obligations to buy PRNs. There also may be some obligated companies that do not yet declare their obligations ("free riders"), although any such companies found to be doing so face very stiff fines.

The overall tonnage of packaging waste the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs predicts that producers will be obligated to recover is therefore 84.6% of the total in the waste stream in 2004. This figure is expected to rise to 86.7% of the total in the waste stream by 2008.

The tonnage obligations for 2004-08 are predicted to be as follows: