The government's Advisory Committee on Packaging is developing the 350,000 project, which will manage the flow of packaging waste recovery notes (PRNs) and their export equivalent (PERNs) – the evidence used to show that packaging producers have paid for their share of UK recycling targets for the recovery of packaging waste.
Defra said the database will remove the need for businesses to submit hardcopy data to regulators and “could eventually lead to the use of electronic packaging recovery notes (PRNs) and packaging export recovery notes (PERNs)”.
Reprocessors could be submitting recovery and recycling data electronically by the end of this year under the new system, while the full system should allow registrations for the 2007 compliance year to be carried out online.
The Department said: “Ultimately the new database will help industry obtain the latest data in a more timely way, thereby helping the packaging market to operate more effectively.”
Fraud
A major hope for the new database is also that it will help tackle fraud in the PRN system, specifically the issuing of “inappropriate” PRNs – those sold to packaging producers that do not represent the recycling or recovery of packaging waste. It should also help Defra identify “free-riders” – businesses that deal with significant amounts of packaging but which avoid their legal obligation to contribute towards its recovery.
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Regulators are also expected to benefit from the database, which Defra said would save “considerable administrative time”, allowing the environmental agencies to put more resources towards enforcing the Producer Responsibility Regulations.
Funded largely by packaging producer companies and produced by a project team within the ACP, on completion the database will be owned and run by the regulatory bodies.
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