Following the hearing yesterday, Wastepack chief executive Paul Ashworth insisted: “Our members have supported our approach and want to see the money that they spend on compliance directed to increasing recycling. Our regulator accepted our 2001 plans.”
As part of the inquiry into the costs to industry associated with the 1994 European packaging waste directive, the Lords committee wanted to know why Wastepack purchased only 175,000 tonnes worth of PRNs in 2001 – when its obligation for that year was for 415,779 tonnes in mainland Britain and 3,531 tonnes in Northern Ireland.
Mr Beard, Wastepack's director of marketing and communication, responded: “The situation was that in late 2000 our company believed that there would not be enough PRNs to comply within the existing PRN system. In that situation we consulted our regulator and proposed a plan which involved partially complying through the PRN system and partially complying through recycling.”
Before hearing Wastepack's evidence, the committee also heard from David Eggleston of the Linpac group, Chris Scholey from Rexam Glass and Ian Dent from the Packaging Federation, who warned that without extensive investment, there was no way that European recycling targets for 2006 would be met unless hundreds of millions of pounds was put into the system.
Surprised
Chaired by Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, the committee was particularly interested in hearing from Wastepack during the second part of the hearing.
Although criticism has been levelled at Wastepack from various quarters in past month – including the Valpak chairman, John Gummer MP – the Lords singled out how Wastepack had responded to the angry comments made by Environment Minister Michael Meacher in April.
“We were very surprised, and we were convinced that the minister could not have been in possession of the full facts,” Mr Beard told them. “The minister suggested that our company had played a major part in the UK's failure to comply with the EU directive in 2001.”
He added: “We feel that our company has been unfairly and unreasonably criticised.”
The Minister, Mr Meacher, apologised for the embarrassment his comments may have caused, and Wastepack informed the Lords committee that they have accepted this apology.
Pink Bag
The committee was keen to hear about Wastepack's expenditure in 2001 in light of it not meeting its obligation entirely from PRNs.
The Wastepack representatives explained that their plan was to invest in increasing collection and reprocessing capacity – particularly from the household waste stream. This involved the 'Pink Bag scheme', a kerbside collection project for 40,000 households in East Anglia, as well as plans for a technologically advanced material reclamation facility (a 'Super MRF').
Mr Beard said: “It was going to be a two year programme. That is where the money was going. We designed it, we found three sites for it and we undertook some pilots where we actually extracted materials from household waste. But that essentially has stopped because of the huge debate. We would very much like to start it again.”
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