Defra consults on reducing glass recycling targets

 

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has opened a consultation on reducing business recycling targets for glass packaging in Great Britain (GB) and Northern Ireland (NI).

Government said it is proposing to reduce the recycling targets for glass bottles and jars (as set in the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) (Amendment) Regulations 2012and the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Obligations (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2012) after finding that GB and NI are ‘over-achieving’ against the EU’s glass packaging recycling target.

The EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste set a target to recycle 60 per cent of glass by 2008. After this date, member states were obliged to continue to meet this minimum target, but had the option to set higher national targets if deemed necessary.

As such, the UK Packaging Regulations were introduced, and currently require obligated producers to recycle 81 per cent of the packaging they handle and ensure that 63 per cent of this is met through remelt applications.

However, government says that keeping the targets at current levels would see obligated producers incur higher costs than necessary, and so proposes reducing the targets to ‘deliver a net benefit’ to businesses.

It cites a WRAP-commissioned report into glass packaging flows, in which compliance scheme Valpak found that the statutory business targets for recycling glass for 2013-2017 was 350,000 tonnes too high. This was due to a number of reasons including ‘assumptions around growth’ and ‘the issuance of fraudulent packaging recovery notes’.

The report also indicated that there would likely be ‘no incremental growth’ in the industry over the same period.

Consultation details

The ‘Consultation on changes to the glass packaging recycling business target to 2017’ – aimed at packaging producers; packaging compliance schemes; reprocessors and exporters of waste packaging; and waste management companies (amongst others) – suggests either ‘doing nothing’ (option 1) and keeping theglass packaging recycling business target at 81 per cent, or:

• lowering the glass packaging recycling business targets to 75 per cent, and either:
  • maintaining the split between remelt and other applications at the same percentages as set out in the regulations (option 2a); or
  • amending the split to 65 per cent remelt and 35 per cent ‘other applications’ for 2014 and 2015, rising to 66 per cent remelt and 36 per cent ‘other’ (up from the current rates of 63/37 and 64/36) for the subsequent two years (option 2b);
• lowering the glass packaging recycling business target to 77 per cent, and either:
  • maintaining the split between remelt and other applications at the same percentages (option 3a); or
  • amending the split to 66 per cent remelt and 34 per cent ‘other  applications’ for 2014 and 2015, rising to 67 per cent remelt and 33 per cent ‘other’ for the subsequent two year (option 3b)

According to Defra, all variations of options 2 and 3 would ‘lower the cost to society of recycling glass’ (compared to option 1), with the ‘net benefit’ of option 2a being £4.23 million, and option 2b being £3.41 million.

Options 3a and 3b would result in fewer savings (£2.82 million and £1.51 million respectively), as the overall reduction in recycling tonnage is lower than in option 2.

However, in an assessment of the net cost to business, option 2a has the highest negative net present value (NPV) compared to the other options.

An impact assessment reportedly found that setting the business target at 75 per cent would achieve an estimated 62.6 per cent UK recycling rate, while a 77 per cent target would achieve a UK recycling rate of 64.7 per cent.

Government added that as the ‘do nothing’ approach would not deliver ‘the optimal outcome in terms of net benefit’, it is ‘not minded to pursuing this option’ but welcomes views on this proposal as well as the other options.

Respondents have until 17 January 2014 to submit views, and Defra says a decision will be made ‘by Budget 2014’.

Read the ‘Consultation on changes to the glass packaging recycling business target to 2017’.