The approval, issued by the European Commission this week, ends an anxious 16 months for WRAP as it waited to see whether some of its grants would fall foul of EU rules on State Aid.
Its largest project to date, support for a 120 million newsprint recycling line at Shotton (see letsrecycle.com story), ran into trouble with State Aid rules in 2003. But, in a separate assessment by the Commission earlier this year, it permitted most of WRAP’s support for the project, totalling 17 million.
 EU decision is “shot in the arm” for recycling investment – Jennie Price, WRAP chief executive |
Now the recycling market development organisation is celebrating this week’s separate decision to approve its work as “a major breakthrough for recycling.” It is now allowed to give grants to firms larger than SMEs (small and medium sized businesses). The larger firms can have a substantial turnover and will be employing more than 250 people.
A partial approval had already been wrung from the Commission in June this year, when approval was given to WRAP for a pilot recycling fund, a 5.5 million equity fund focussing specifically on the recycling sector for businesses (see letsrecycle.com story).
WRAP chief executive Jennie Price described the decision as “a shot in the arm for a series of initiatives to kick start investment in the plastics, glass and aggregates recycling sectors.”
The principle of the clearance for the WRAP programme could have implications as well for the rest of Europe, explained WRAP’s materials manager Liz Goodwin. “The decision means that the Commission now recognises the environmental benefits of recycling and this will raise awareness of the British approach in the EU’s other member states.”
 “Commission now recognises environmental benefits of recycling” – Dr Liz Goodwin, WRAP materials manager |
Grants
Dr Goodwin estimated that the approval could now see support by WRAP for projects that see more than one million tonnes of material recycled. A large chunk of this amount will consist of aggregates and green waste with smaller tonnages of plastics and glass. A plastic bottle recycling facility handling about 20,000 is to be supported by WRAP and the organisation also plans to give capital grants to encourage the recycling of 80,000 tonnes of container glass.
Despite the delays in implementing capital grants, Dr Goodwin said that WRAP had been very active in continuing its support for research programmes. “We have a number of exciting research projects underway which could lead to big tonnages of materials being recycled. One example is the Europrojects study which is examining how truck bodies can be made out of recycled plastic.”
WRAP has also highlighted the support it received from the Department of Trade and Industry in winning approval for its work from the Commission and also its lawyers, SJ Berwin.
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