The company, which is obligated to pay for the recycling of packaging waste under Europe's Packaging Directive, said this week that with the UK's producer responsibility system it is financially more worthwhile for waste to be exported, rather than being recycled in the UK.
” In a straight contest it seems that exporting it and getting a PERN stands up head and shoulders above getting it recycled in the UK.“
– Paul Densham, Sainsbury's
There have been concerns at the spiralling exports of packaging waste from the UK, with this country now largely reliant on uncertain world markets to meet its European recovery targets.
An influential government advisory body is now investigating the issue of how sustainable the current levels of packaging waste exports are in the long-term (see letsrecycle.com story).
A debate was held this week at the Valpak annual conference in the West Midlands over whether there should be any mechanism within the UK producer responsibility system to favour domestic recycling above exports.
Sainsbury's
Packaging producers, including the supermarket chain Sainsbury's, said that it is more financially worthwhile to export packaging waste.
The supermarket said that while domestic reprocessors want to hold on to revenue from the issuing of packaging waste recovery notes (PRNs, the evidence bought by producers to show producer responsibility has been carried out), exporters are happy to pass export PERN revenues back to Sainsbury in return for providing the exporters with material to export for recycling.
Paul Densham of Sainsbury said: “In a straight contest it seems that exporting it and getting a PERN stands up head and shoulders above getting it recycled in the UK. If you can send it abroad it is best – domestic recyclers want to hang on to the PRN, exporters can pass it on to Sainsbury for the material it supplies.”
”There will only be a new set of stresses and strains if you tinker with the system. “
– John May, Corus
Domestic plastics reprocessors present at the annual conference, including Doug Mercer of Frank Mercer & Sons, agreed with the need to boost the importance of the PRN compared to the export PRN (PERN).
However, reprocessors in other materials argued that the PRN system is a market system and the market should therefore be allowed to decide how it goes about recovering packaging waste.
John May of steel reprocessors Corus said: “If you have a market system, you have to leave it as a market system – there are stresses and strains, but there always will be even if you introduced other ideas. There will only be a new set of stresses and strains if you tinker with the system.”
Valpak
Steve Gough, chief executive of the packaging waste compliance scheme Valpak, said the compliance scheme could not push for a differential in pricing between PRNs and PERNs as it would not be in the interest of some of its members, such as Sainsburys. He added that changing the system to give more advantage to domestic reprocessing could be “complex and difficult to administer”.
However, asked what would happen regarding the European recovery targets set for 2008 if the world market for packaging waste dried up, Mr Gough admitted: “We'd; fail. The PRN system is never going to fill that gap on its own.”
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