A House of Commons Select Committee report on the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive, published today, said that there are around 37 shredders operating in the UK which are served by a number of feeder scrapyards.
The committee notes that the SMMT told us that “their research shows that around 250 feeder yards cover 95% of the population. Between 60-80% of the existing shredding capacity is with two shredders. We raised our concerns over the competitiveness of the shredding market with the DTI. Dr Alastair Keddie told us they were “very aware” of the issue and were taking advice from the OFT on the matter.”
The committee goes on to recommend that the DTI continue to monitor the competitiveness of the shredding industry after the Directive has been implemented to ensure that the market is operating competitively.
The issue of competitiveness has surfaced in the past. The UK has two main shredder operators, European Metal Recycling and SimsMetal. When the competitiveness issue was raised in the past the OFT referred the matter to the European Commission because metal recycling is an activity included under rules governing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). This tends to look at competition on a European rather than domestic scale.
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