An MP has called on the government to hold an urgent debate on plastic packaging recycling, claiming that the UKs sorting and collection infrastructure is a long way from delivering the aims of Defras packaging recycling targets.
Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday (July 12), Dr Matthew Offord, Conservative MP for Hendon, said that the government needed to consider the local reality of plastic packaging recycling and suggested that the targets offered little incentive for councils to improve packaging collections.
The new packaging targets which come into effect next year, will increase 5% per year for four years from 37% in 2013 to 48% in 2017, although some within the sector have raised doubts as to whether they are achievable.
Dr Offord said: The government intend to introduce ambitious targets for the recycling of plastic packaging, which will impose financial obligations on UK manufacturers. However, local collection and sorting of plastic packaging is a long way off from being able to deliver those targets and there is little incentive for local councils to improve when they have weight-based recycling targets.
May we have an urgent debate on how to establish a realistic road map for promoting recycling that takes account of the local reality and does not hold small and medium-sized enterprises financially responsible for delivering targets that are outside their control?
Defra
No Defra minister was available to respond to Dr Offords statement, although Sir George Young, MP for North West Hampshire and leader of the House of Commons pledged to take the matter to government.
He said: My honourable friend raises an issue that is of concern to many local authorities, including my own. I shall raise the matter with my relevant colleagues, who are presumably those at the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Communities and Local Government, to see whether we can find a way through and provide real incentives to recycle that do not impose unrealistic obligations on small and medium-sized enterprises.
In recent weeks, the government has recognised the need for increasing plastic packaging recycling rates, with recycling minister Lord Taylor calling for more plastics bottles to be recycled by the public and throwing his weight behind the We Need Your Bottles Campaign (see letsrecycle.com story), lead by Dagenham-based bottle recycler Closed Loop. Plastic bottles are seen as the quickest win with regards to boosting plastic packaging recycling rates, as the infrastructure for sorting and reprocessing this material is much more established in the UK than it is for mixed plastic packaging.
Bottles
The call for a debate on plastic packaging comes after warnings from Jonathan Short, managing director of ECO Plastics, the UKs largest plastic bottle recycler, who last week (July 3) said that the UK needed to walk before it can run and maximise plastic bottle collection before focusing on other types of plastic material (see letsrecycle.com story).
Speaking at the Resource Recovery Forums summer conference titled Mixed Plastics Whats left to sort? Mr Short said that his company had seen a significant rise in the amount of mixed plastics being collected over the last three years, which he said was having a negative impact on the quality of plastic bottles being received at its Lincolnshire bottle recycling plant.
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