Regulation review for metals industry

Lindsay Millington is Director General of the British Metals Recycling Association, the trade association for ferrous and non ferrous metal recycling companies. She represents the industry on a number of UK and European bodies, including Defra's waste strategy stakeholder group and the BERR end-of-life vehicle consultation group. Following an early career in the not-for-profit sector, she was chief executive of the metals sector skills body, MetSkill, from 1990 to 2005, where she led a variety of initiatives including the re-introduction of metals manufacturing apprenticeships and vocational qualifications.

Ms Millington explains why the BMRA needs a more balanced approach to regulation 

As the Egyptians discovered in building the pyramids, broad foundations produce long-lasting structures. The success of UK metal recycling, too, has been built on broad foundations, with many small, family-run merchants providing an effective, locally-based supply route for larger merchants, shredder operators and traders.

But this metal recycling pyramid is under threat as more and more regulations are introduced, each with its own procedures, costs and paperwork: a massive burden, particularly for small businesses with little administrative resource.

Problems are magnified when new rules are introduced with limited industry road testing, a recent example of which arose over licence modifications for WEEE treatment. Guidance rarely has a pre-existing industry like metal recycling in mind. Yet metal recycling is so central to the recovery of end-of-life products that it has to deal with all the related EU Directives – ELVs, WEEE, Packaging and Batteries, each with its own set of treatment rules.

Bureaucracy

In the coming months and years metal recycling, a low-risk industry with a well-established market, expects to see even more bureaucracy. The new Environmental Permitting Regulations are supposed to simplify systems and lower costs for business, but instead bring new competence certification requirements.

Defra's Review of Exemptions could force a third of BMRA members into more complex licensing. Europe is debating the extension of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) to metal recycling sites. None of this ‘one-size-fits-all' regulation responds to identified risk.

It is time to consider a more proportionate approach to regulation. We need a more balanced view, leading to sector specific guidance and streamlined systems. That is why BMRA is calling on Government for a full review of regulation affecting metal recyclers, to consider the needs of both the industry and the environment. Without regulatory change those broad foundations that make the UK a world leader in metal recycling will falter.