The comments come at a time when the sector is struggling to reach its target to collect 57% of waste plastic packaging by 2017, with Recoup estimating that as much as 1.2 million tonnes of the material will need to be recycled in 2017, an increase of around 500,000 tonnes on current collection rates.
Speaking at Recoup’s annual conference and AGM in Peterborough yesterday (September 25), the organisation’s chief executive Stuart Foster pointed to figures made available by the Environment Agency, suggesting that of the estimated £28 million received for plastic PRNs in 2013, only £180,554 was used for the development of communications strategies – much of which was for corporate, rather than consumer campaigns.
Pledge 4 Plastics
Recoup has been among the industry bodies involved in developing the consumer communications campaign Pledge 4 Plastics, launched this month, which aims to increase the capture of recyclable plastics from householders (see letsrecycle.com story).
The campaign has been developed alongside partners including Coca Cola Enterprises, Veolia, Closed Loop Recycling, Valpak, the Kent Resource Partnership and Surrey county council with backing from Defra, but Mr Foster revealed that the initiative has a relatively modest budget of £70,000. He called for more support for the campaign from the plastics industry.
On the distribution of funding from PRNs he said: “There’s £5 million that is being retained for future investment and I really don’t like that. If that PRN value is being generated it should be reinvested in the industry and I’d like to see more auditing of that to make sure that £5 million is going to where it should.
“I also think more of that funding should go towards communications programmes if we see that as a priority.”
Budget
On Pledge 4 Plastics, he added: “We’ve known from the start that it is fantastic that we have the groups involved that we do, but it needs to be bigger. We can’t overstate how much we have achieved with the amount of funding we have had to do that.”
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Mr Foster also said that the group behind the campaign had appealed to Defra to see if more money could be diverted from PRN revenue towards communications schemes, adding: “If we are seeing this as a priority, why can’t we receive more of this money?”
Nick Cliffe marketing manager at Dagenham-based plastic bottle recycling firm Closed Loop Recycling added that more of the revenue from PRNs should be used to support communications schemes such as the Pledge campaign.
He said: “When you see that figure it is a glaring omission in the allocation of funds. Lots of people are looking at the [PRN] system for all sorts of reasons and it is something I think could go into that mix.
“I’d urge any recyclers out there to come in and match us on this. It is just as valued to spend on this as on anything else.”
Progress
Delegates were also given an update on the early progress of the Pledge 4 Plastics campaign, since its launch at the beginning of September.
Pat Hindley, communications manager at Surrey council, was among the members of the steering committee for the campaign and explained its approach, which includes a national social media-led element, alongside specific resource for local authorities for communications at a local level.
To date, more than 2,000 people have pledged to recycle at least one more plastic bottle per week in support of the campaign.
Ms Hindley said: “We need to maintain momentum of the current campaign and build the support base and the budget. We have got until 2017 to meet these targets and there is still a long way to go. We have done some amazing things with the budget we have got.”
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