UK looks to delay 2006 packaging targets by two years

Now, government departments including the Department of Trade and Industry, are seeking views on whether a delay is supported by industry and other interested parties.

The views are being sought as part of a general consultation exercise on the impact of the packaging waste regulations which will be amended by the EU to include higher targets for 2006 or later.

The document says that in order to achieve higher targets more packaging waste will have to be extracted from the household waste stream. But, plastics may not be one of these materials as the paper says there is likely to be enough left in the commercial and industrial waste stream “to allow continued access to this stream for the discharge of targets.”

Household
Prices for packaging waste recovery notes (PRNs) will rise, the paper says, because the collection of household waste is more expensive than commercial/industrial.

The paper also looks at packaging waste flows and says that in 2000 the flows were estimated at 9,158,911 tonnes, of which 8.475 million tonnes was obligated tonnage according to the Advisory Committee on Packaging. Taking the assumption that recovery and recycling in the last quarter of 2001 was consistent with the preceding nine months, the document says that 4,184,819 tonnes were recovered and recycled in the UK in 2001.

Letsrecycle.com sees this figure as being below that required for the UK to meet its targets for 2001, the packaging flow for the year was 9.3 million and the 50% EU target would require recovery of about 4.65. However, nothing is clear in packaging waste data. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the obligated tonnage for 2001 may have been nearer to 8 million tonnes (rather than 8.4m). (Obligated tonnage is the amount of packaging in the waste stream which is covered by the regulations). One issue that now appears to be arising is that the obligated tonnage is reducing when compared to the overall amount of packaging in the UK. This could be because many more smaller businesses are importing or handling packaging and are exempt because of the low business threshold for the regulations.

Estimated recovery and recycling rates in 2001

The paper also gives recovery and recycling rates achieved for 2001 (shown in the table above) which put paper at 57%, glass at 39%, steel 45%, aluminium 25% and plastics at 15%. These have been estimated by the DTI using calculations based on assessing “residual availability”. The calculations have also been applied to produce estimated recycling and recovery levels to achieve proposed 2006 targets. The system is based on applying a formula for example, relating to the specific amount of paper recycled to the amount of general recycling.

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