The row was initiated by UK board mills earlier this year because they felt that recovered paper merchants exporting used-KLS (cardboard) should not be receiving export-PRNs (PERNs) for the material. The domestic mills also argued that their stocks were low and that they could not afford to meet the higher prices available in the export market.
Ron Humphreys, president of the British Recovered Paper Association (BRPA), wrote last month to his own association's members about the matter. This was in response to a call by the Paper Federation that the government should suspend the export-PRN system. Some BRPA members were furious that mills should have acted in the way they did and felt that the plea for suspension of the system was quite unjustified.
Mr Humphreys told BRPA members that consultation should have taken place with the association and that the shortage was “a market problem and was not specifically related to the PERN”.
At yesterday's meeting representatives of the BRPA, the Paper Federation and the Independent Waste Paper Processors Association met in Daventry in a bid to settle their differences. Because the market situation has now changed, partly with a weakening in export demand, UK mills agreed to drop their call for a ban on the export-PRNs.
DEFRA meeting
The three are now trying work on areas of agreement, rather than disagreement, ahead of a meeting later this year with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to discuss the PRN system.
Among issues under discussion are the value of PRN. Some paper industry representatives consider that the value should be linked to the cost of landfill and also that the industry should have more freedom to do what it wants with PRN income.
Kathy Bradley, director of External Affairs for the Paper Federation, said that the meeting had been very useful and very productive. “We are focusing on areas of agreement of which there are many. The two sides are working together and we hope to work together more under the Confederation of Paper Industries in the future.”
(Note: A PRN is the common term for a packaging waste recovery note. These are issued, one per tonne, for material recycled or recovered in line with the packaging waste regulations. PRNs can be sold in the market for a sum likely to be in the range of 25+ for paper.)
Subscribe for free