Last year saw the first ever official EU recycling targets for the UK with specific levels having to be met by June 2001. Compliance schemes say that the lack of data for 2001 is hampering their calculations on two fronts: over the number of PRNs needed this year and the extent of new recycling needed. Only recently John Turner, who has just retired as chief executive of Valpak – the largest packaging waste compliance scheme – spoke of his disappointment that the figures were not available.
Mrs Beckett, Secretary of State at the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was this week tackled on the matter by letsrecycle.com and asked whether Britain had met the packaging waste targets.
She confirmed that she did not yet know whether the targets had been met, saying: “I don’t know if we have met them yet, but we are basically at the start of a lot of these practices. We set targets that are challenges in order to take the steps to meet them.”
The mystery surrounding the targets for 2001 could be resolved within a few weeks as publication of the targets has been seen as imminent for some time.
But, there is a widespread belief that unless the government has managed to round up extra evidence of recycling and recovery, the UK will fail to reach the targets by about 150,000 tonnes of material.
Register for free to comment