Scottish Executive will not withdraw approval of Wastepack

The review was started in April 2002, following the Scottish Environment Protection Agency's (SEPA) verdict that Wastepack had failed to take “reasonable steps” to fulfil its recovery and recycling obligations in 2001 (see letsrecycle.com story).

Now the review process has come to a close, Scotland's environment minister Ross Finnie backed SEPA's judgement, confirming that no action would be taken to de-register Wastepack.

Commenting on the review, Mr Finnie said: “I do not condone Wastepack’s actions in 2001, and I agree with SEPA that Wastepack did not take ‘reasonable steps’ to comply with the Regulations in that year. ”

He continued: “However, Wastepack is now complying fully with the Regulations through the conventional means of the purchase of Packaging Waste Recovery Notes. I have therefore decided to maintain Scottish Ministers’ approval of Wastepack as a compliance scheme.”

The full conclusions of the Scottish Executive review were as follows:

• The review team accepted SEPA's judgement that “Wastepack did not take reasonable steps to comply with its 2001 plan”.
• The effects of Wastepack's 2001 plan and activities “disrupted the PRN market, depressed prices for PRNs and therefore lowered supply, and contributed to some extent to the size of the UK's failure to meet its Directive target in 2001”.
• The review team did “not consider that Wastepack's actions in 2001 undermined the continuing operation of the packaging recovery system in the UK”.
• The review team noted that Wastepack “met its 2002 targets through the PRN system and plans to meet its compliance obligations for 2003 and subsequent years through the PRN system”.
• There was no reason to suppose that Wastepack would not continue to “subsist and assist the UK in achieving the objectives and targets of the Directive”.

Wastepack
Responding to the judgement of the Scottish Executive, Wastepack's Mike Beard told letsrecycle.com: “We welcome the announcement by Scottish Ministers that they will continue their approval of the Wastepack compliance scheme.”

He continued: “We are pleased that this Review is now behind us. We will complete our compliance through the PRN system in 2003 as we did in 2002. At the same time we will work actively within the compliance market to highlight any deficiencies in the operation of the regulations and to propose changes which will improve their effectiveness and minimise costs for our customers.”

Wastepack is still holding discussions with organisations in regard to the distribution of the remaining 2.3 million from the 2001 plan (see letsrecycle.com story). Though these discussions have been going on longer than had been expected, it is thought some resolution may be reached soon.

Mr Beard explained: “We are in discussion with a number of organisations and one in particular which we wish to resolve before we move on to talk to the other organisations. It has been a long process of discussion and we hope that it will be complete in the next few weeks.”