Meacher pushes packaging targets up to 59%

The new targets replace the 2001 targets of 56% recovery and 18% material-specific recycling.
Mr Meacher said: “We have done well so far – 36% recycling and 42% recovery of packaging waste by the end of 2000 and an improvement in recovery of 12% since 1998.

“In 2001 we had to achieve at least 50% recovery, 25% recycling and 15% recycling for each material under the EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste. On the assumption that the UK did meet these targets and recovered the necessary 4.6 million tonnes in 2001, the targets I am announcing today should allow nearly five million tonnes of packaging waste to be recovered in 2002.”

Relevant
As has happened with previous government announcements on packaging waste not all the relevant figures have been released. It is thought that the five million tonnes figure is reached through taking 59% of 8.4m tonnes of obligated packaging. (The total packaging flow in the UK is about 9.2m tonnes but some of this is not obligated as it is handled by small businesses.) The 59% figure would give a tonnage of about 4.95m (out of 8.4m), which represents an increase of about 350,000 tonnes on the tonnage obligated last year. It also means that about an extra 300,000 tonnes equivalent in PRNs – packaging waste recovery notes – will be needed.

PRNs
First indications from the compliance sector are that the new targets seem unlikely to mean a big rise in the value of PRNs and could in fact see some levelling of prices in the short term. Mr Meacher himself had suggested a higher figure but faced Department of Trade and Industry opposition. Precise forecasts as to how 2002 will turn out need more data over several points – these include how many PRNs from 2001 have been carried over into 2002 and whether the UK has actually achieved its 4.6m tonnes figure for 2001.

In contrast to his assumption today that the UK has met its targets last year, Mr Meacher did warn earlier this year that the situation is “touch and go”. And, there are many in the sector who consider that at a first count the UK will not have met its targets. Furthermore, a confidential DTI report produced in January this year which looks at how future packaging waste targets will affect industry is thought to have forecast that only about 4.15m tonnes may have been collected in 2001.

April 7
The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has had to act now because the deadline for registration this year is April 7 and some companies and schemes considered they could not enter data on their forms because they would not know the targets by then.