The comments came in the organisation’s response to the government’s consultation on changes to the Packaging Regulations and to seek views on where the packaging waste regime can help meet the 2020 target.
The consultation, launched in March, also sought views on potential changes to the plastic packaging recovery target, in light of research which suggested that baseline data used to measure the UK’s progress to EU packaging targets is out of date (see letsrecycle.com story).
In its analysis on options for meeting the 2020 household waste recycling target, Recoup claims that it had surveyed around 199 local authorities, with over two thirds acknowledging that they did not see any benefit from plastic PRN revenue.
It added: “Approximately £55 million has been raised through the plastic PRN system from producers over the past three years. With £11.3m raised (20% of total) being allocated towards local authority collections, this is the equivalent of 43p for each household in the UK over that period.”
Funding
Recoup goes on to state that the level of transparency as to where money is allocated within the PRN system must be addressed before it can be decided whether increasing PRN funding will help to drive progress towards 50% by 2020 progress.
“There is a need to ensure that plastic PRN funding is transparent. It is expected that the majority of the funds allocated against ‘Funding Collection’ and therefore attributed to local authority support are used to inflate the value offered for material from the sorting facility. Recoup have also been informed that the funds allocated against developing communication strategies refer to trade and corporate communications, rather than consumer facing communications.”
Target
On the packaging target, which stands at 52% for 2016, and will rise to 57% for 2017, Recoup has stated that it supports maintaining the projected increases set out by the government to 2017.
Changes to the target have been mooted in light of the ‘Plastic Flow 2014’ study, published in December, which claims that over 2,260,000 tonnes of new plastic packaging were placed onto the market in 2013. This, the report claims, is around 330,000 tonnes less than the 2,515,809 million tonnes of plastic packaging that Defra had forecast for the period.
Recoup adds that any consideration of reducing or delaying current targets will “weaken the legislative pressure on achieving increased plastic packaging recycling”, and undermine infrastructure investments and plans based on the set targets. “Momentum to increase plastic packaging recycling, and demand for PRNs, can only be maintained if the 5% yearly business target increases are in place,” the organisation adds.
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