Minister calls for more industry action on packaging

Joan Ruddock has called on the packaging industry to work more closely with local authorities to increase the availability and quality of household recycling collections.

The environment minister said to an industry conference in London last week that packaging manufacturers are increasingly being labelled as the “bad guys” despite work being done to minimise packaging waste through packaging design and producer responsibility measures.

She said that despite issues like flooding and the forthcoming Marine Bill dominating her Department's agenda, Defra still receives ever more mail about the issue of packaging – “specifically, why isn't government doing more?”

“I think many of you in the audience recognise that something needs to be done,” the minister told the IGD 'Packaging Reduction & Optimisation' Conference on Wednesday.

“So what can you do? Perhaps you need to work closer with your stakeholders and highlight the work you are doing. You need to work closer with local authorities to increase household or community collections and discuss how they can improve the quality of material collected for recycling,” the minister said.

Minimisation

During her speech, Mrs Ruddock highlighted the good work being done by WRAP, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, as well as companies like Boots, Coca-Cola and Marks & Spencer, to reduce the amount of packaging being used and show that more recycled plastic can be used in making new packaging.

In particular, she suggested that if Marks and Spencer could make sure none of their clothing or packaging ends up in landfill by 2012, “then everyone else ought to be able to do so too”.

“Despite this good work, and the fact that packaging recycling rates have nearly doubled since 1997, I think many of you in the audience here today have been cast as the bad guys,” she added.

The minister also defended the government's voluntary producer responsibility initiative, the Courtauld Commitment, which she said would lead to annual savings of 80,000 tonnes of packaging waste. Mrs Ruddock said the Commitment would expand to other retail sectors other than just the grocery sector.

She also highlighted the government's proposal to increase recycling targets from 2008, but noted that even if the targets were hit, five million tonnes of packaging waste would still be going to landfill each year.

But the minister said that as for more government action than that announced in this year's new English waste strategy, “as far as my department is concerned we've already set out our stall for the future.”

It was therefore up to industry to work with councils to help ensure packaging waste is not going to landfill, she said.

Although talks between the local government sector and packaging producers on possible support mechanisms for recycling schemes (see letsrecycle.com story) seem to have fallen silent, Mrs Ruddock expressed her hope that some kind of protocol could still be developed to encourage cooperation.

She said: “We want to support the development of a joint protocol to ensure that local government and industry identify the most cost effective way to collect packaging waste.”