WRAP to develop new markets for difficult materials

The Waste and Resources Action Programme has been given 4 million of Landfill Tax money through the Business Resource Efficiency Waste (BREW) programme. BREW has been set up to help businesses minimise their environmental impact with the help of Landfill Tax receipts.

”Funding from the BREW programme will help the organisation expand its work to include new materials and look at new ways of supporting recycling from business helping them to use their resource more efficiently“
– Elliot Morley
WRAP will be allocating 3 million towards the development of new markets difficult materials. A further 1 million will be split between developing a pilot project for the collection and recycling of waste from small businesses and expanding WRAP's current Business Development Scheme (BDS). The scheme provides funding and advice for businesses involved in recycling.

Environment minister Elliot Morley said: “WRAP have been very successful in developing new markets for recycled materials. Funding from the BREW programme will help the organisation expand its work to include new materials and look at new ways of supporting recycling from business helping them to use their resource more efficiently.”

The funding forms part of the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) five year strategy and will see 248 million of Landfill Tax money distributed to a number of agencies over the next three years.

Opportunity

Commenting on the funding Liz Goodwin, director of materials programmes at WRAP, said: “This extra funding will give us the opportunity to apply the skills we have already developed over the past three years across our current materials programme to these challenging new material streams.

“WRAP has already helped a large number of businesses involved in recycling through the BDS, and we look forward to this extra funding allowing us to build upon our existing successes in this field,” she added.

Ms Goodwin also said that WRAP were excited by the prospect of exploring the options for the collection and recycling of waste from small businesses. She added that small companies are often under-served in terms of collection services and represent a significant source of waste materials that could be recycled.