The Department announced today that it will work with the DTI, devolved administrations and regulators on a further “fact-finding mission” after similar exercises in 2003 and 2004.
This stage of Defra's investigation will establish whether there is any substance to allegations concerning paper packaging waste reprocessors and exporters. It follows similar work in the wood and plastics packaging waste streams, which has just led to the prosecution of a plastics recycler (see letsrecycle.com story).
PRNs and PERNs represent packaging waste that has been reprocessed or exported, acting like a kind of currency for the UK's packaging recovery system.
Notes are sold to packaging producers by reprocessors or exporters for every tonne of packaging waste reprocessed, and this demonstrates that the producers have met their recovery obligations under the Packaging Waste Regulations (see legislation section).
Allegations
However, Defra said: “In light of allegations that PRNs and PERNs are being issued, in some cases, for waste that is not packaging, or in others, for tonnages for which a PRN/PERN has already been issued, Defra, working closely with the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Northern Ireland administration and the agencies, investigate the allegations to determine if they were well founded.”
The Department said that the exercise will again seek to identify “any weaknesses in the existing arrangements by examining the robustness of existing recording and monitoring systems and the audit trails adopted by paper packaging waste reprocessors and exporters.”
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It said representatives from one or more of the three regulatory agencies, government bodies and auditors will visit a number of UK paper packaging waste reprocessors and exporters.
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