Progress, but more still to do
Jonathan Short, Deputy Chairman and Founder of ECO Plastics outlines his wishes for 2014.
Having hung a new calendar for the start of another year, it is always helpful to reflect on successes and failures of the last twelve months. Looking back it does feel as if major progress was made in 2013, but that there is still much to be done. Major concerns over the quality of the UK waste stream and the continuing policy of incentivising export ahead of domestic processing must be resolved, and quickly.
From a personal perspective, 2013 was hugely successful for ECO Plastics. Having launched our Continuum joint venture in May 2012, we reached the milestone of processing half a billion bottles within a year. Not only an excellent performance by the team here, but also a very positive sign for the wider industry I believe.
More importantly the UK also made significant progress towards the establishment of a mandatory Code of Practice for Material Recycling Facilities. This is fundamental if we are to tackle the growing amount of contaminated material that reaches UK re-processors and which has played a major part in shutting several businesses down in the last year. It is essential that DEFRA introduces a compulsory and unadulterated code as its first order of business in 2014.
I am also heightened by the signs that Government is considering a review of the Packaging Recovery Note (PRN) scheme. As I and many others within the industry have repeated ad nauseam, it is ludicrous that exporters are able to generate significantly more revenue than domestic processors.
The recent Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group’s ‘Exporting Opportunity’ report suggests that Defra offset the PRN for any reprocessed content included in new products as a means of encouraging recycled material, and I wholeheartedly agree.
If we want a comprehensive and world beating waste industry, we must allow UK processors to generate the revenues needed to finance the creation of new infrastructure, rather than subsidising the export of our raw materials abroad.
Of course the industry can do more to help itself. For too long we have collectively stuck with the mantra of buying and selling material on the spot market, in the hope that we can generate better returns. How true that philosophy is, is debatable, but what is unquestionable is that short term contracts make it extremely difficult to predict future revenues with any accuracy.
Our partnership with Coca-Cola Enterprises has shown first-hand the value of long term relationships, allowing us to raise the finance necessary to expand our processing plant and invest in new infrastructure. Investment is absolutely fundamental if we are going to create a 360 degree domestic industry.
One cloud on the horizon is the household recycling rate. It has plateaued alarmingly in recent years to the point where if we continue at our current level we will not only miss the Governments 2017 recycling targets but also our binding EU 2020 targets. I firmly believe that a campaign educating consumers about how the system works, what can be recycled and where their material ends up will quickly address the problem and lead to an improvement in the quality and quantity of material sent for reprocessing.
Whilst attending various conferences within the UK and Europe there is a real sense of frustration around the on-going dialogue and little obvious action. We need less conversation and more action in 2014. With a few key changes, the UK could be on the verge of creating a truly world beating industry.