Difficulties have been caused by a delay in the publication of the regulations, which came into force on January 1, as obligated businesses have to submit new business plans before the end of January, 2004. With only a few weeks until the deadline, official criteria for the plans are not yet available.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told letsrecycle.com that the regulations would be published on Her Majesty's Stationary Office (HMSO) website today. And, DEFRA said the official regulations would be almost identical to the draft regulations already in circulation “barring a few comma changes”.
The new regulations, part of a package of changes brought in with new industry recycling targets for 2004 to 2008 (see letsrecycle.com story), came into force on January 1, 2004.
But, although the regulations came into force, the industry has not so far had access to the official regulations in order to comply. The packaging recovery sector has reacted angrily to the delay in the publication of the regulations, since companies are have only informed guesswork to rely on and only a fortnight to submit new business plans to the Environment Agency.
“We are proceeding forward as we see fit,” one compliance scheme told letsrecycle.com, “but we haven't got a clue what has got to be in these business plans. If you are an obligated business, what have you got to do? There are many issues that are not clear – for example, we're not sure if leased packaging has to be reported or not. We know it's not obligated, but do we have to report it?”
Another major compliance scheme said: “We need to submit a completely new business plan, which has to include significant details that were not in the business plans we submitted in the past. Working from the draft regulations, we are not completely sure what we have to include.”
The concern is that business plans could be rejected if the details are not correct. But, a government spokeswoman reassured the sector. She said: “The changes to the packaging regulations are based on proposals from the Advisory Committee on Packaging in May 2002. There has since been a full consultation, a news release in November and draft regulations for England and Wales published on the HMSO website.”
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