WRAP praises council recycling efforts

And, the Defra-funded body stressed that collecting materials for recycling was “the best economic option” for councils, despite concerns that the market situation could make recycling more expensive for them.

Marcus Gover, the director of the market development programme at the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) told letsrecycle.com that he wanted to “congratulate householders and local authorities in keeping it going in these very difficult times”.

He described sending materials to reprocessors as “still the most viable and economic option compared to landfill” for councils.

And, while he acknowledged that the price falls had been a “setback” for the recycling sector, he said: “We see the UK coping very well with it, recycling is holding up very well.”

In particular, Mr Gover said that WRAP's latest market information showed that “prices for quality materials are holding” and he emphasised slightly increased prices for newsprint and cardboard, which were driven, he explained, by apparent improvements in export markets.

Chinese New Year

However, he acknowledged that there was “some uncertainty” about just what would happen to markets for recovered materials in China after next week's Chinese New Year celebrations.

There have been suggestions within some sectors which are heavily reliant on export to China that, while there maybe heavy purchasing in the lead-up to the celebration, markets could be hit by a heavy drop off in the immediate weeks afterwards.

And, in its latest pricing update, WRAP claimed that the “outlook should become clearer following the Chinese New Year holidays, when trading resumes.”

Stockpiling

Mr Gover also commented on media reports of large amounts of recyclable materials being stockpiled (see letsrecycle.com story), saying that: “Even at the volumes reported, if that's correct, there's still 95% getting through.”

“Perhaps we should write a story about the hundreds of tonnes of materials that are being reprocessed every day,” he added.

Looking at specific materials, Mr Gover suggested that “the newsprint industry is quite mature and I think that's why the newsprint prices have held.”

But, he acknowledged that the downturn could impact on investment in the “growing” plastic recycling sector, saying that: “It's going to be harder to get that investment to happen but there's a lot planned, there's quite a lot where the process has started.”