Last month, Defra published a consultation on new packaging recycling and recovery targets from 2013-17. This included plans to raise the target for plastics packaging recycling by five percentage points per year for five years from the current 32% level (see letsrecycle.com story).
And, commenting on this, the British Plastics Federations Recycling Group whose members include Viridor, ECO Plastics, Closed Loop Recycling and Jayplas – said it was pleased at the commitment shown by the government in achieving a step change in plastics recycling.
But, the organisation stressed that the magnitude of the task could not be underestimated and that thereare big implications in terms of infrastructure development and material quality which need to be addressed.
MRFs
The Group is particularly concerned that a successful UK plastic recycling model will only be able to be achieved if the quality of plastics from MRFs improves. It claims this is currently making recycling this material in the UK economically marginal and less viable. The BPF says this is particularly important in light of recent announcements by China of plans for higher domestic recycling targets, which will reduce demand for imported material.
BPF Recycling Group chair Roger Baynham, who is also chair of the WRAP Plastics Forum, told letsrecycle.com: The targets provide an opportunity for the plastics recycling sector to grow and take advantage of. But the critical thing is that it needs to work. We arehighlighting the sheer enormity of the task.
We currently rely significantly on the export market to Asia where they are able to accept lower quality material as they have a difference approach based on low labour costs and lower landfill costs. The lower the quality the more difficult it is for UK recyclers to compete.
If China is no longer going to be an importer of plastic waste as it is becoming more self sufficient then the UK will have to ensure that quality is uppermost when it comes to developing infrastructure.
PRNs
Mr Baynham, who is managing director of industrial plastics recycling company Philip Tyler Polymers, acknowledged that plastics recyclers will receive more income through the Packaging Waste Recovery Note (PRN) system when the targets go up. But, he said that the time frame was so tight for meeting them that the investment and infrastructure needed to be secured as a matter of urgency.
He added that such an ambitious targets could only be achieved through a coordinated and structured approach involving all stakeholders.
He said:National and local government, waste management companies, plastic recyclers, the investment community, and critically retailers and brand owners must work together now to deliver the innovation, technology, enterprise and funding upon which this vision will fundamentally rely.
It is important that we have joined up thinking. The success of bottle recycling has been in gaining traction amongst brand owners and retailers in using material. Similar traction needs to be found around using other recycled plastic materials. There needs to be end user markets for those materials. The targets cant work in isolation.
Concerns
In 2010, the BPF raised similar concerns over plans by the previous Labour government to raise packaging recycling targets for plastics. At the time, it drew attention to the fact that Germany has had an active plastics recycling scheme for 15 years and still only managed to achieve a 42% recycling rate (see letsrecycle.com story).
The BPF is one of the organisations behind the Plastics 2020 Challenge, a public awareness campaign which has set its sights on boosting plastics recycling rates to 50% by 2020 (see letsrecycle.com story).
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