And, the Association is working with the Environmental Services Association in bid to get end of waste status for waste paper or recovered paper, the meeting heard.
Dr Ellin described how proposals to handle business waste under a new EPR system could have meant recycling and waste companies having to bid for business waste zones, or in one circumstance compliance schemes owning the material.
“It is now the case that the Government will work with the industry and other stakeholders to come up with new proposals in a few years’ time,” he said.
And, Dr Elling confirmed that the existing PRN system would remain until at least 2027 although there will be increased reporting requirements.
However, he cautioned that concerns remained that there could be a requirement to sell PRNs either in the month or quarter that they were raised. In particular, this would cause issues at the end of the compliance year. This seemed to have been designed to mitigate against rising PRN prices for some materials at the end of the compliance year, but some materials, such as paper, typically dropped in value towards the year end.
Quality
As part of its ongoing Quality First campaign, The Recycling Association had agreed to come down in favour of kerbside sorting of paper/cardboard. In the Consistency of Collection consultation, Defra has proposed that film and food and beverages cartons become core materials to be collected by local authorities.
The Recycling Association is working on a joint process with ESA to achieve End-of-Waste status for paper/cardboard
In order to accept these materials becoming core, Dr Ellin explained that he “had advocated that paper/cardboard needed to be collected separately because film and cartons were very difficult to sort mechanically away from paper.” He said he was pleased that Defra has seemed to take this on board and councils will need to collect paper/cardboard separately when the new regulations eventually come in.
He also noted that The Recycling Association is working on a joint process with ESA to achieve End-of-Waste status for paper/cardboard based on the EN-643 standard.
While this would be a voluntary process, it would mean that “the public and politicians’ perception of recovered fibre would be that it is a commodity rather than a waste.” It would therefore fly the flag of quality. Other countries such as France, Spain and Italy have implemented End-of-Waste for paper/cardboard, he said.
Elections
At the meeting, Craig Curtis was re-elected as president of the Recycling Association. Celine Grant from Re-gen Waste was elected vice president, and will succeed Mr Curtis as president in 2024.
EPR CONFERENCE
The Resources and Waste Strategy and EPR will be discussed at a conference organised by letsrecycle.com on 9 June 2022.
For more details visit: EPR Conference
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