“There has been no evidence of a decrease in packaging on the market,” said SEPA's Patrick McKell.
He said producers were reluctant to reduce their packaging for a number of reasons: “Companies say the amount of packaging on their products can be justified with health and safety issues; for security reasons and, in the name of competition.”
“There needs to be a shift in physical and financial responsibility from the government to the producer, but so far producers have had little incentive to minimise waste,” explained Mr McKell.
The producer packaging regulation officer was speaking at a two-day conference in Edinburgh, held by the Recycling Action Group Scotland (RAGS).
In contrast, business development director of Valpak Scotland, Duncan Simpson, suggested that progress was being made with producers beginning to take some responsibility: “It's important to remember that waste minimisation does take place on a regular basis in industry for cost reasons. British Glass has reduced their use of materials by the reduction and light-weighting of glass containers. Aluminium cans and many other materials show the same profile of change.”
A number of additions need to be introduced to the packaging waste directive to improve the situation, said Mr McKell. These include a greater emphasis on prevention of packaging, where there are currently no targets and there also needs be mandatory producer responsibility. And he added that while businesses were more environmentally aware, there was not enough financial incentive at the moment to reduce packaging.”
The officer said that this incentive should come as packaging waste recovery targets increase year on year until 2008. He hoped producers would realise how much they were spending and start to reassess how much packaging they used.
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