Government ‘close to resolving’ consistency, Coffey says

During an Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) evidence session yesterday, 8 February, Dr Coffey also remarked that she is doing a “deep dive” into extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging to address industry concerns.

The evidence session was held following recent announcements on environment policy, including the publication of the government’s environmental improvement plan (see letsrecycle.com story).

It also aimed to address concerns expressed by the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), which found that majority of the government’s environment targets were not on track.

Priorities

Referring to the environmental improvement plan, Claudia Webbe, independent MP for Leicester East asked Dr Coffey what Defra’s priorities were.

Dr Coffey responded that the department is “close to resolving consistent recycling” and wants to make progress with EPR. She added that she is “conscious the industry is concerned about aspects of this”.

As a result, she is doing a “deep dive” to address this, and this needs to be progressed before government can consider any alternative forms of EPR.

David Hill, director general for environment at Defra, later noted that the packaging reforms programme “accounts for around 75 to 80% for the effort share for the waste sector in terms of net zero commitments”.

Textiles

Ms Webbe also posed a question regarding the introduction of EPR for textiles, which was identified as one of the five waste streams in the Resources and Waste Strategy 2018 that a potential EPR would be consulted on.

The strategy planned to consult on two of the new waste streams by the end of 2022, but no consultation has yet taken place.

Ms Webbe expressed the committee’s concern regarding textiles, asking when concrete plans might be brought forward. Dr Coffey replied that she is not going to be able to include textiles in EPR “in the near future”. “As it stands, there is work being done in terms of policy development, but focus is on packaging EPR,” she added.

Building on Dr Coffey’s statement, Mr Hill explained that sequencing also comes into play with policy introduction. “If we bring forward additional EPR schemes, it increases the cumulative load that we’re placing on the industry and business to adapt as it is a big change programme.”

He concluded that there is a lot of work going on around textiles but reiterated the environment secretary’s points about prioritising packaging.