Speaking at its annual opening meeting in central London today, Jennie Price said the performance of the Waste and Resources Action Programme during its two-year business plan had been “just about good enough”.
– Jennie Price, WRAP
The Banbury-based, government-funded organisation revealed today it has boosted the diversion of waste away from landfill to the tune of 4.6 million tonnes – as well as creating five million more “committed recyclers” among the public.
But Mrs Price spoke of her disappointment that only 88% of WRAP's organisation's overall landfill diversion target had been achieved.
As confirmed by WRAP's latest Achievements Report, published today, only 20 out of the 33 individual targets were fully reached, with some key targets in paper, glass and waste minimisation missed.
Mrs Price said: “We have got to try some things and take some risks, which means we will sometimes fail. We knew when we set the targets that they were difficult but they stretch us.”
Commenting on the overall achievement, she said: “I would really like it to be 98% rather than 88%, but it's just about good enough.”
Progress
WRAP was pleased its performance in creating awareness, particularly through the “Recycle Now” campaign, which chairman Vic Cocker said had helped create “one of the biggest behavioural changes over the last five years”.
Progress, too, has been made in the recycling of aggregates and in attracting private investment into the recycling sector, save for the troubled Recycling Fund (see letsrecycle.com story).
One particular success highlighted by WRAP today was in getting more High Street retailers to sign up its Courtald agreement, which sets out targets for cutting packaging waste (see letsrecycle.com story). Signatories of the agreement now represent over 92% of the UK grocery market, the organisation said.
Addressing delegates, WRAP's chairman was confident that this overall progress was promising. Mr Cocker said: “We have moved on in leaps and bounds. When I joined WRAP I was not sure landfill targets were deliverable but things have progressed and now I think it can be done.”
He added that WRAP's role, to develop markets for recycled products and encourage resource efficiency and awareness was not finished. He said: “Despite the progress, our work is not done by a long way.”
Problems
Concerning its more difficult targets, WRAP's achievements report highlighted the need for more collections of flat glass and the development of alternative markets as key for glass packaging.
On paper, the organisation said high energy costs and low virgin pulp prices had pushed tissue manufacturers away from using more recovered paper.
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And, the organisation said difficulties in achieving the go-ahead from Europe for recovered paper projects – under EU State Aid rules – had been a major obstacle to success.
However, Mrs Price insisted today that WRAP would continue its efforts in the recovered paper sector. She said: “In paper, we have had problems such as state aid restriction but we will just have to find a way to crack that and keep on trying.”
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