The government’s Advisory Committee on Packaging has recommended that reforms of the PRN system should make it more centralised with a strategic approach in management of its activities.
The ACP packaging committee’s views, were explained last week by chairman Phil Conran to the parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee chaired by Labour MP Mary Creagh. Mr Conran told the committee’s MPs that the more centralised approach would “provide more investment in infrastructure and better overall control of how we meet future targets.”
Phil Conran, chair of the government’s Advisory Committee on Packaging
PRNs and export PRNs are used in the UK as an accounting system to ensure adherence to rules around packaging recycling and recovery obligations for all those in the packaging chain.
The ACP is made up of a range of senior individuals from across the packaging waste, retail, reprocessing and compliance sector. Mr Conran told the Environmental Audit Committee that it would like to see a move away from the current value-driven PRN market “where it potentially encourages short termism, encourages exports and people take advantage of exports which are slightly less controlled than the UK.”
PRN options
The government is expected to include proposals for major changes to the PRN system in an options paper due to be published later this year. While the options were not discussed at the parliamentary committee, these are expected to include: a more centralised approach to running the system; reducing the number of compliance schemes; and a revised approach with producers paying into a fund in advance of putting their products on the market.
Mary Creagh’s committee was addressed by Mr Conran; Ruth Beckley, head of customer service and compliance at Valpak; Richard Kirkman, chief technology officer at Veolia; and Lee Marshall, chief executive of local authority organisation LARAC.
Front row (l-r) Veolia’s Richard Kirkman; Valpak’s Ruth Beckley; and, Lee Marshall, of local authority organisation LARAC
UK investment
Ms Beckley said that Valpak would like to see “a reduction in the de minimis so that more producers are obligated.” And, she said Valpak favoured more focus on free riders who don’t pay into the system and making sure there was a level playing field between domestic and exporters. “In the long term we want a higher amount to be invested in the UK system; our members want to encourage UK businesses and want to have access to that material for manufacturing”.
The missing element in the PRN system is not having any requirement for recycled content in new products, said Richard Kirkman. “There is no requirement for that and we would like some sort of escalator giving some foresight which businesses would like. We are currently collecting materials, separating them and then we don’t have anywhere for them to go.”
He later explained more on this problem: “We think the PRN system works very well. We will build the facilities but we have a PET plant in East London which we do not run because there is not enough PET subsidy to run it.”
Mandatory content
A mandatory recycled content approach was endorsed by LARAC’s Lee Marshall who supported the idea of a “pull through system. Reform of producer responsibility not the PRN system is what is needed.” And he said that the PRN system is “older than Google and had very little update in its existence.”
Transparency
On transparency of where PRN income goes, Ruth Beckley said that Valpak would like “to see more transparency in that spending, particularly if costs do increase.”
And she noted that there “used to be an independent audit report which was taken out as it was seen as burdensome. We thought it was a good thing.”
Her comments on this caught the attention of the parliamentary committee chair Mary Creagh who appeared surprised that the audit system had been dropped.
Spending
The review of the PRN system is expected to focus better on how money raised can support the development of UK infrastructure and the question of infrastructure funding was raised in the committee as well as how much PRN money went to local authorities.
Parliamentary committee member Colin Clark MP referenced LARAC evidence that £600 million was spent by councils on recycling packaging.
Ruth Beckley said that some money will get passed down but it depends on the structure of agreements while Phil Conran said that the PRN value is not a key contributor to local authorities. He explained that the system was set up to meet European targets for recycling packaging and it does also “help some reprocessors to stay in business but they find it difficult to plan long term.”
Veolia’s Richard Kirkman said: “The PRN is there to develop infrastructure and go to reprocessors and arguably downstream to people who are putting it into products. If it went to local authorities you would probably end up incentivising things which didn’t have an end market as you would be incentivising them to do it.”
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Source: letsrecycle.com Packaging
