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Sonae pushes for more packaging waste

Board manufacturer Sonae UK has informed its wood suppliers that the company is “now actively seeking out those suppliers that can provide 100% obligated packaging waste in their material”.

A fax sent to wood collectors and shredders from recycling manager Andy Hanratty urged suppliers to focus on providing Sonae with as high a content of obligated packaging waste as possible.

Mr Hanratty told suppliers: “You are enjoying a premium price for a higher percentage of PRN material. Any lowering of the obligated percentage will have an immediate detrimental effect on your contracted price.”

Some recyclers have told letsrecycle.com that the pressure to provide board mills with packaging waste is too high, and that if board mills like Sonae are going to refuse to take material from them unless it is packaging waste, there could be a temptation to misinform Sonae about the proportion of packaging waste in deliveries.

Sonae's Stuart Wyn-Evans pointed out that every stage of the process is audited, and that the Environment Agency is putting pressure on board manufacturers to ensure that the percentage of packaging waste being accepted is known.

“We have a pictorial survey identifying the material prior to chipping,” he said. “We send people round to our suppliers with digital cameras to get pictures of the packaging before it comes to us. It all has to be properly audited.”

90m investment
Mr Wyn-Evans, of Sonae, said he was surprised at the attention attracted by the company's desire to process more packaging material, when companies like his are attempting to do their bit to help the UK reach its packaging waste targets.

“We've put in a 90 million investment into our plants specifically to handle this kind of wood,” Mr Wyn-Evans said. “Last year we put 21 million into cleansing machinery. We've been investing for two and a half years and are one of the leading wood recyclers when it comes to reprocessing.”

“We're asking our suppliers to push for packaging waste and we're paying them a premium price for it,” he said. “We pay significantly more than other board mills, with money paid out in real money terms for them to clean and sort it.”

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