Through its recycling and waste management subsidiary Valient Recycling, the compliance scheme recycles about 100,000 tonnes of mainly paper, plastic and glass packaging waste for recycling.
As a waste outsourcing business, Valient's collection, recycling and exporting is all carried out through subcontractors. Valient plans to export about 15,000 tonnes of material to China during the remainder of this year and announced on Friday that it is to open an office in the Northern port of Tianjin to liaise with Chinese reprocessors, government and regulators.
Speaking at the scheme's reprocessors' conference in Leicester, Valpak chief executive Steve Gough explained: “Historically, Valpak has been requested to handle members' waste. We are exporting some material for reprocessing, and we want to be sure that the material we take from our membership is handled in the correct fashion with a strong audit trail.”
AQSIQ
Valpak has been accredited with China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) under its new licensing system for companies shipping recyclable material to the country.
Valient Recycling general manager Mike Jefferson said: “By opening an office in China we will have greater clarity and control over the recycling of material we export. This enables us to obtain the best possible prices and end market security for our customers' material.”
The export side of the packaging waste recovery system has grown radically in the last 12 months as demand from the Far East flourishes. But the scheme said its recycling and waste subsidiary Valient will continue to have a strong presence in the UK, where 70% of its material would be reprocessed.
Mr Jefferson said: “We have always had, and will continue to have, a commitment to supporting UK markets, however we do recognise the need for exporting particularly when certain grades of material have limited outlets or their collection exceeds UK reprocessing capacity.”
Obligation
Valpak's chief executive said at its reprocessors' conference on Friday that the compliance scheme's members now make up 55% of the UK market, representing an obligation of 2.9 million tonnes.
Mr Gough said that Valient allowed Valpak to open up new alternatives for the reprocessing of its members' packaging waste. He added that being a reprocessor of waste meant the scheme could see firsthand the issues reprocessors are facing.
For more information on how the packaging waste recovery system operates in the UK, see the letsrecycle.comlegislation section.
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