The Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI), British Glass and The Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) UK have united to urge Defra to rethink its decision to allow commingled collections of paper, card, glass and liquid cartons under Simpler Recycling. Current proposals threaten the quality of recovered materials, which in turn, stand against our national circular economy ambitions.
The new Government has made a priority of moving to a zero-waste economy, however, by degrading the quality of recycling, current Simpler Recycling proposals oppose this aspiration. The proposals aim to standardise recycling collections across homes, workplaces and schools by mandating collections for seven streams of waste. Councils will be allowed to collect plastic, metal, glass, paper and card in one bin in all circumstances.
CPI, British Glass and ACE UK are today warning that commingled collections of paper and card with other materials like glass and liquid cartons will reduce the quality of recycled material and result in huge quantities of reject materials that cannot be recycled into new products. Both Defra’s own evidence and international evidence shows this will increase contamination and jeopardise the UK’s recycling rates. The proposals will also lead to significantly increased reprocessing costs for waste processors and reprocessors – causing disinvestment in recycling infrastructure.
In advance of the Government laying a further statutory instrument to bring Simpler Recycling closer to fruition, the trade associations are calling for separate collections of paper/card and glass, with liquid cartons collected with plastics and metals – to increase the quality of recyclate collected. Separate collections will strengthen the value of the material collected, whilst driving up recycling quality.
Andrew Large, Director General at the Confederation of Paper Industries said:
“Whilst we agree with the ambition to mandate collections of certain materials, in order to meet recycling targets and achieve a more efficient, circular bioeconomy, we need a system that will drive up the quality of recyclable materials. Commingling paper and card with other materials damages the quality of recyclate collected, ultimately hampering progress towards a zero-waste economy.”
“Separate collections underpin some of the most successful recycling systems in Europe, including Labour-run Wales – where 87% of card is collected for recycling. To achieve a net-zero economy, we urge the Defra Secretary to halt the Simpler Recycling proposals they inherited from their predecessors until they meet the new Government’s circular economy ambitions.”
Dave Dalton, Chief Executive of British Glass added:
“British Glass supports the ambition of Simpler Recycling to require councils to collect glass at the kerbside, however, the proposals currently allow all dry recyclables to be collected together in one recycling bin. This will make recycling processes more complex and less efficient as more materials are mixed together, particularly paper and card. In turn, this will reduce the quality of glass recycled.”
“Separate glass collections would increase the value of the glass collected, whilst also having a positive impact on the environment by ensuring we use less virgin materials to make new glass products. By doing this we can move closer to a true circular economy of glass, ensuring that more glass packaging is not only recycled but reprocessed into new glass packaging here in the UK.”
Mandy Kelly, Chief Executive of The Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment observed:
“We are strongly supportive of the Government’s Simpler Recycling reforms, particularly the inclusion of liquid cartons within the core list of materials for consistent kerbside collections from English households and businesses. However, without further consideration of the way that materials are collected and sorted, we risk the unintended consequence of collecting more fully recyclable materials than ever before, only for more of these materials ending up in residual waste streams at sorting centres.
“The new Government has a great opportunity to update and enhance our Simpler Recycling approach with separate collections for paper and card products, delivering upon the promise of a true UK circular economy.”