In a joint letter to the government, groups including manufacturing body EEF, environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth, British Glass, the British Plastics Federation, the Confederation of Paper Industries, the Packaging Federation and the Resource Association, have warned of a pending resource crisis and claimed that businesses are at risk due to limited access to raw materials.
The group claims that if the UK does not develop a strategy to ensure that raw material that is currently being landfilled or incinerated is recycled and put back into production, the consequences for the UK economy will be severe.
The organisations have also published an Action Plan calling for:
- The establishment of an Office for Resource Management to deal with the crisis.
- A task force to review existing targets and recommend policy changes to improve recycling.
- Recyclable materials to be banned from energy from waste plants and landfill.
Friends of the Earth resource campaigner Julian Kirby said: The countrys leading business and environment groups have joined forces to direct a clarion call to the government ministers must take action to prevent a growing resource crisis becoming a catastrophe for our economy and the environment.
The UK buries and burns at least 650 million a year of valuable materials wasting billions of pounds of business and public money. David Cameron must address the incoherent approach to resource security his government has taken so far.
A new Office of Resource Management would ensure all departments create jobs and boost the economy by slashing the waste of natural resources.
Action Plan
EEF head of climate and environment policy Gareth Stace praised the governments Resource Security Action Plan, published in March 2012, which outlines plans to prevent millions of pounds worth of precious metals contained in WEEE from being thrown away each year (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, Mr Stace also called for the government to draw up plans for longer term resource security.He noted that earlierthis year, an EEF survey found 80 per cent of senior manufacturing executives considered limited access to raw materials was already a business risk and a threat to growth and for one in three companies it was their top risk.
Mr Stacesaid: We live in an age where demand for resources is surging with prices increasing and concerns about shortages mounting. Whilst the current Action Plan was a step in the right direction, it currently falls short of meeting the challenges we will face where obtaining new resources will become more difficult and costly.
Government must now step up its ambitions and produce a wider plan of action that deals with the challenges not just now but in the longer term. This is vital not just from an environmental perspective but to ensure the long term sustainable future for manufacture and the wider economy.
Safeguards
The group are urging ministers to create safeguards to ensure that resources are used more efficiently to create tens of thousands of new jobs, protect the environment and boost the economy.
They claim that the cost of raw materials has skyrocketed in recent years, and project that prices will continue to escalate as an additional three billion people join the global middle classes, increasing the need for manufacturers to use recycled materials for production.
Related Links
The EEF published a review of the governments waste policy in January, urging the government to develop a more ambitious approach to waste management, and to work with industry to develop a strategy that would enable the country to make better use of materials that are in scarce supply (see letsrecycle.com story).
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