Environment Agency meets with industry over waste exports

The meeting took place after one shipment of recyclables from a UK materials recycling facility was turned away because of its high level of contamination.

Agency officials are concerned that materials from commingled kerbside recycling collections may not be meeting European standards for waste shipments after they have passed through sorting plants.

” It was a constructive meeting laying out the Environment Agency's findings concerning sorting plants, looking to make sure that where people are exporting, they are complying with the shipment regulations.“
– Environment Agency
A spokesperson for the Agency confirmed that the meeting had been “constructive” and formed part of its continuing Seaports Project with other European environmental regulatory bodies, which aims to improve export standards for waste materials.

The Agency spokesperson said of today's meeting: “It was a constructive meeting laying out the Environment Agency's findings concerning sorting plants, looking to make sure that where people are exporting, they are complying with the shipment regulations with green, amber and red list restrictions.”

Under European transfrontier shipment laws, the export of “waste” for disposal is illegal. The export of wastes for recovery is permitted under certain conditions.

Wastes are categorised as “green list”, “amber list” or “red list” materials depending on their hazardous status, with the more hazardous amber and red list wastes subject to more stringent controls. The export of hazardous wastes to non-OECD countries is illegal.

Paper
One of the issues discussed involved mixed paper containing card, and whether this meets European waste catalogue definitions. It is felt by some in industry that the Environment Agency may be taking too hard a line.

One leading supporter of the export of recyclables, Philip Serfaty, co-director of Community Waste, said last month that with the increases in local authority collections there is no way the UK could maintain recycling levels without exporting material.

Speaking at an open day at the Milton Keynes MRF, Mr Serfaty said that exports of paper are continuing to rise and is likely to have reached 2.4 million tonnes in 2004.

“We have better collections now, which leads to an increased recovery. In 1988 the UK recovered 2.8 million tonnes of paper, that figure is now almost 6.5 million, but due to a stagnant market we are not increasing the amount (of recycled paper) that we produce,” he said.