The chief executive of INCPEN, the Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment, made the remarks at the Outlook Conference last week (27 January) in a session which also heard from Derek Rooney of Local Partnerships and Lucy Cox of Valpak.
Mr Vanston explained that there is still “much to do” for the reforms to come to fruition, with the current 2023 date highly unlikely to be met. He added that his members have warned that the system will need to be “financially stable” for all, or risk failure.
The INCPEN chief also said he felt that too much time was being spent on transactional issues looking at where money is flowing, rather than “environmental outcomes”.
Changes
Mr Vanston was outlining the scale of changes still needed in order for the system to be implemented.
He explained: “It’s undecided what the scheme administrator will be, and we don’t know what this will be like, particularly with the four UK nations all needing to align.
“This group will also need to decide what is recyclable, have up to 250 staff, manage £2-3 billion a year and have a system to do that too. It will also be a not-for-profit. There is no organisation which exists and can do this. Alongside this it will also need to determine necessary costs producers pay, report performance to government and achieve targets.
“Will the system be financially stable for everyone? That’s the mandate my members have given to me. I’m not just looking out for my members’ interests, but if any part of the system is not financially sustainable for everyone at any stage, the whole thing will fall.”
Study
Mr Vanston also highlighted the findings from a survey his organisation recently commissioned on public confidence in recycling ahead of the changes. INCPEN commissioned three surveys across the UK and Ireland. These asked how confident the public were that items put out are actually recycled. The results showed that in the UK, 45% were confident, with 19% not confident. This gave a net confidence rating of +26%.
England recorded 23%, whereas Wales recorded 43%. For on-the-street material, the net approval rate was was just +11%.
Food waste
Also addressing the session was Derek Rooney, programme director of Local Partnerships, a joint venture owned by the Local Government Association, the Treasury and the Welsh Government.
Mr Rooney said a raft of changes are needed to meet the aims set for food in the Resources and Waste Strategy.
“There will be a need to increase treatment, we are in the process of developing a standardised document to help with joint procurement for food waste treatment. Mandatory collections coming in will also lead to a requirement for additional vehicles and containers.
“All of this supporting infrastructure will need to be powered by renewable sources. Output for AD will also need to be reused. There is so much more to be done to hit recycling goals as well as net-zero ambitions.”
Mr Rooney also said there is much to do to set up scheme administrators for the EPR and DRS systems.
And he pointed out that the new legislation could require MRF reconfiguration, while staff also need to be reskilled to learn more about reuse and repair.
Data
Rounding off the session, was Lucy Cox, head of compliance services at Valpak.
She explained that in order for modulated fees to function the data provided would need to be “granular”.
“We’re still waiting to hear what modulated fees look like, and what it entails. But we know packaging recyclability will be an initial factor in determining producer costs to enable recycling o increase.
“Data needs to be more granular, and more detailed in terms of what producers need to report. Government have said they want to make it as futureproof as possible, so it doesn’t have to be amended all the time. To start with, for producers there will be a lead in time and a lot of work to get this set up.
“I can’t give you the answers for what fee modulation ill look like, what we do know is data reporting needs to be more broken down.”
Ms Cox gave examples of how data can save significant amounts. One such instance was supermarket brand dry pasta, where more than £236,000 a year can be saved by having more granular data on what material the packaging consists of, and its recyclability.
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