Teams of Environment Agency inspectors and auditors visited 19 plastics packaging waste reprocessors to look into the audit trail and how packaging waste reprocessing notes (PRNs) are issued.
Defra was first alerted at the end of 2002 to the issue of reprocessors issuing PRNs that did not represent the recycling of packaging waste. This year's investigation into the plastics sector followed last year's similar investigation into the wood sector. After visiting 20 wood packaging waste reprocessors in 2003, Defra found that the amount of wood packaging recycled in 2002 had been overstated by 76,000 tonnes.
Speaking at Valpak's reprocessor's conference on Friday, James Biott from Defra's producer responsibility unit, said: “The minister was very concerned at the allegations directed at the plastics sector. But the visits to 19 reprocessors have now been completed and we are expecting to publish the results of the investigation in a couple of weeks.”
The main issue in the wood sector was that non-packaging wood was being classified as packaging waste. This was mainly through inaccurate assessments of wood loads, the Defra official said, explaining: “it was obvious that some assumptions were being made about how much packaging wood was in mixed loads”.
Since then, the wood sector has been formulating a Wood Industries Voluntary Wood Verification Protocol to strengthen the audit trails of packaging waste. Mr Biott said: “This should ensure that PRNs are only issued on packaging waste. Ministers are keen to see other sectors taking this approach.”
Serious
The issues in the plastics sector are being seen as more serious by the Environment Agency compared to the wood sector. It is not known whether companies will be identified in the Agency report or not because of possible legal implications.
Fears are that the inappropriate issuing of plastics PRNs had severe implications in inflating the plastics packaging waste recycling rate. With the crack-down on PRN fraud, this year has seen a 37% drop in the plastics packaging waste recycling rate in the first quarter and a 49% drop in the second quarter. While 27 reprocessors – including some plastics reprocessors – did not submit their data in time for the first quarter, only four reprocessors failed to submit their data return for the second quarter.
John Gummer, the former environment secretary and chairman of compliance scheme Valpak, said the issue of fraud in the PRN system was the key problem in meeting UK packaging waste recovery targets.
“We only need a little fraud for it to have a great effect,” he warned. “The market distortion is very significant. If markets tighten, as they are expected to, fraud must be wiped out completely. It undermines the whole principle on which the British system is based.”
Data system
Mr Gummer welcomed Defra's investigation of the plastics reprocessing sector, but said the next important step was to make the market more transparent by providing an online data system.
And, he said it was vital that the local authority Wastedataflow system of online reporting should be opened up to the public to help guard against inaccurate and misleading data.
He said: “We are pleased that Defra is doing this, but it's got to be available to everyone. At the moment, it's just going to be available to Defra, but there's no point in the government having its own data without allowing people to criticise it and make sure it's true.”
The Valpak chairman warned that in the past, Defra had got important data wrong, and had once reported the amount of packaging in the waste as being six million tonnes, when it had been closer to nine million tonnes.
Register for free to comment