The opinion on the case of Mayer Parry Recycling Ltd v Environment Agency and Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and Regions said that metal recycler MPR's treatment of packaging waste was not recycling within the meaning of the Packaging Directive.
The opinion is an important part of the European judicial process and is prepared by an expert as information for the judges who usually use it to help in their final rulings. The opinion explained: “The metal is not completely recovered, foreign substances still require removal, and there is no production process from which a new product comes into being.”
This could stop MPR – which is now part of European Metal Recycling – from succeeding in its bid to issue Packaging Waste Recovery Notes for packaging metal it sends to UK steelworks. The company had argued that it should be allowed to do this because it produces material ready for use by a steel processor. But a material could not be termed 'recycled' until it had returned to the original form it took prior to becoming packaging, the opinion said.
“The aim of recycling is to recover starting materials,” said the report. But the Grade 3B scrap processed by the company does not attain its previous state of pure steel until it is re-melted by the steel producers.
Therefore, the product made by companies such as MPR which is used as a feedstock must be classed as waste and it is only recycled when used by a steelmaker to produce ingots, sheets or coils of steel, the assessment added.
The ruling will dash hopes raised by an Environment Agency ruling this week (02.07.02) which appeared to accept that materials were not waste if they had a use when radioactive MOX (mixed oxide – plutonimum/uranium) fuel being delivered to the UK was judged not to be waste because it could be used –
(see letsrecycle.com story).
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