Grosvenor, which has a large materials recycling facility in Erith, Kent is a long established exporter of recovered paper and other materials.
” Millions of tonnes of recycling activity across the UK are at serious threat of stopping and returning to landfill, wasting hundreds of millions of pounds of public and private sector investment over recent years “
– Grosvenor
Over the past weeks some of its containers of material being sent for export have been stopped by regulators on the Continent before they reached their final destinations, usually in China, India or elsewhere overseas.
The company has also been featured in the Guardian newspaper with a number of allegations made about the quality of the material being exported.
The issue has come to a head after the Environment Agency and its equivalents in other EU states decided to get tough with regard to exports of municipal waste for recycling. Legislation has existed for many years to prevent waste being dumped overseas – in the 1980s there were stories of toxic waste being dumped in Nigerian lagoons.
Transfrontier rules
As a result of the Nigerian and other cases, transfrontier shipment rules were introduced in the 1990s with a colour coding system for exports. Sorted material, usually to a grade, could be exported under a green control, while commingled material from households would probably be shipped under the amber controls.
There has been much confusion since the 1990s over exactly what is permitted and how this all dovetails in with grade lists. The Environment Agency itself has put little resources into the transfrontier work and has also struggled to clarify how the rules actually work.
Now Grosvenor has hit back at the Agency’s approach and warned that the crackdown could jeopardise recycling in the South-East of England. Other companies are also thought to export material similar to that despatched by Grosvenor although these have not come forward to join the debate.
The statement from Grosvenor is long and detailed and for the sake of accuracy, is reproduced in full below. The points raised will add to the debate about standards and see references to the government, the Environment agency, minister Elliot Morley and the Waste and Resources Action Programme.
The Grosvenor Statement
“Millions of tonnes of recycling activity across the UK are at serious threat of stopping and returning to landfill, wasting hundreds of millions of pounds of public and private sector investment over recent years in developing and promoting kerbside recycling schemes and processing plants in an endeavour to achieve the Government’s statutory recycling targets in compliance with the Landfill Directive.
Recent action by the Environment Agency, acting under waste legislation dating back to 1994, is now seeking to brand all recyclables (paper, paperboard, plastics, cans, glass and textiles) as “hazardous waste” and therefore making it subject to much stricter and cost prohibitive controls governing their movement across Europe or the world.
“Contrary to independent legal opinion and common practice, the EA are now demanding recyclables to be sorted into their constituent parts with “zero-tolerance” of cross-contamination if they are to be exported as non-hazardous waste. This “zero-tolerance” is not demanded by the relevant legislation, the competent government environment protection authorities in the destination countries or the end-processor markets.”
Mixed paper
Grosvenor then go on to look at the situation with regard to mixed paper and highlight their concerns that the export of mixed paper will be banned simply because magazines and newspapers might be mixed with cardboard and loose paper. Last year 2.6m tonnes were exported from the UK.
” Frustrating exports would once again place the UK near the bottom of the European recycling league table “
– Grosvenor
The statement warns: “Stopping such exports to countries like China would have an immediate and catastrophic effect on recycling schemes across the country and damage public confidence in the value and effort of recycling as material would just go to landfill.”
Grosvenor then point out that the UK does not have factories which can reprocess mixed plastics and points to the continuing demise of the paper sector with mill closures, including the Muggiemoss mill near Aberdeen, which is expected this summer.
Looking at the figures, the company states that in 2005 7.22m tonnes of paper waste was collected for recycling, but UK mills can only handle 4.6m tonnes. Grosvenor highlights an article in the Recycling and Waste World newspaper where the Waste and Resources Action Programme confirm the need for exports.
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