James Piper, managing director of producer compliance scheme Ecosurety looks ahead to challenges facing the packaging waste sector 2017, and calls for action to boost packaging recycling rates.
Late last year the waste industry, hosted by the Environmental Services Association (ESA), met to discuss the way forward for packaging recycling.
James Piper, Ecosurety
We were there to talk through the ESA’s report which laid out a number of long-term alternatives to the current PRN (Packaging Recovery Note) system.
The present system has come under fire following criticism from the CIWM president, and is being scrutinised by the Advisory Committee for Packaging (ACP), amid flatlining recycling rates and encouragement from former Defra minister Rory Stewart to explore Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
Despite acute awareness of the problems, consensus in the room was extremely limited. Indeed, the more radical the idea to deal with this stagnating system, the less those attending liked it. While the industry ums and ahs about proposed changes, UK packaging recycling rates continue to atrophy. Ecosurety’s view is that industry simply cannot wait for another report on which nobody can agree. When we launched our online solution to the current PRN system ‘Circularety’ in September, it came shortly after the Brexit vote. We took that action despite great uncertainty and industry angst.
Influence
We can’t expect the government to treat waste and recycling the same as big business, with a personal visit from the Prime Minister and special concessions. We simply do not have that level of power, or authority. Nor do we expect it to give away its Brexit negotiating position.
However, the UK’s waste and recycling industry does employ around 150,000 people, and turns over around £12 billion. We should not be sitting on our hands using Brexit as an excuse for inaction over a stagnating waste packaging system. As an industry, we should not just be passively responding to consultations on packaging targets until 2020; valuable though the opportunity is.
Ecosurety wants to see more ambitious packaging recycling targets now, so that producers and reprocessors can extract maximum value from waste. It’s no use talking about the circular economy as some distant, far off, planet – it’s coming, and rates of recycling are integral to its success.
Volatility
We also want much less volatility in the market, and more investments in collection and infrastructure. It’s not clear to me how recycling rates can possibly increase while producers are overwhelmingly concerned about the price they are paying for PRNs.
At Ecosurety, we’ve done our best to stay ahead of the industry curve. As a grown-up business working in a grown-up world, it’s the only real option. I just wish we could see more leadership, and more action, and less consultation.
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Source: letsrecycle.com Packaging
