UK narrowly misses 85% ELV recycling target

However, it is not yet clear whether the European Commission will take action against the UK for failing to achieve the target set under the EU's ELV Directive, with a BIS spokeswoman revealing that the Commission is still to decide whether to act on countries' 2006 performance – when the UK also fell short of the 85% goal (see letsrecycle.com story).

It is understood that, as was the case in 2006, a number of other EU member states also fell short of the target for 2007.

The figures for 2007 were submitted to the Commission two weeks ago, and show that the UK reached an 84.23% recycling, reuse and recovery rate for ELVs, which, despite not hitting the 85% goal, is an improvement on 2006's 83.53%.

The spokeswoman explained that Commission was now set to “scrutinise” the UK's figures alongside those from other the EU member states, as well as undertaking work to look at the comparability of countries' data, which the UK would participate in..

In total 1,138.496 ELVs were recovered in the UK in 2007, with a total vehicle weight including fuel of 1,118,334 tonnes – representing a 119,000 tonne increase on the figure recorded in 2006.

As a result of this improvement, the BIS spokeswoman claimed that the UK had made “good progress” since 2006.

Performance

But, she revealed that the UK's performance was negatively affected by independent vehicle dismantlers, or authorised treatment facilities (ATFs), failing to reach the 85% target.

“The underlying reason for missing the target remains the same as for 2006 – a number of non-contracted ATFs coming up short of the required 85%,” she said.

Of the 1,000-plus ATFs in the UK, the vast majority are independent, with less than 300 belonging to either Autogreen or Cartakeback, the two service providers which were established to allow car manufacturers to meet their recycling and recovery obligations under the ELV Directive.

BIS has confirmed that, as was the case in 2006, vehicle manufacturers met their obligations for 2007 via the service providers, whose network of ATFs also achieved the 85% recovery target for any 'non-contracted' vehicles they handled.

Non-metallic

While 75% of a car is deemed to be made of metal, the issue for vehicle dismantlers, and in particular smaller operators, revolves around successfully recovering the non-metallic components of an ELV which are left after a vehicle has been shredded.

Concerns have been expressed that the UK lacks post-shredder capacity (see letsrecycle.com story), but the BIS spokeswoman claimed that performance in this area was improving.

“UK shredders are increasingly separating post-shredder materials, and finding markets to supply it into,” she said. “This is having a positive impact on the UK's reuse/recovery rate, as evidenced by the improved performance in 2007 over 2006.”

BIS claimed that this positive impact would also be felt in the figures for 2008, but it was currently in the middle of the “intensive and lengthy process” of checking the returns for the year and was not yet able to say when the results would be made available.

Despite this, the spokeswoman said: “We are confident that the figures for 2008 will show further progress on that achieved in 2007, but it is too early to say whether the UK will hit the 85% target.

She stressed that it was also “too early” to say whether the UK would reach the higher 95% recovery and recycling target which is in place for 2015  subject to review by the Commission, but added that “we are aware that investments are being made now, which should drive performance in the right direction”.