CPI wants focus on quality to achieve recycling targets

Last week, the government launched a consultation on recycling targets to 2020. The CPI said there would be few problems in achieving them over the next five years but warned there were “issues to overcome” to achieve the 2020 targets.

Recovered paper sector manager Peter Seggie said the UK continued to rely heavily on export markets and “quality will continue to play a critical role in maintaining market share”.

“Reaching a recycling level of 86.1% of all paper packaging by 2020 will require new tonnage to be collected in a way that safeguards quality for the markets to ensure demand,” he said.

“This may be more problematic when recovering from the domestic and away from home streams.”

Seggie also highlighted the potential impact on non-packaging paper waste, such as newspapers and magazines, from attempts to boost packaging recycling and said this issue was not covered in the consultation.

“It is important that these recycling streams are not negatively impacted by the drive for more packaging waste from the domestic waste stream or this may offset carbon gains achieved by the packaging strategy,” he said.

Seggie’s comments come after plastics and aluminium bodies blasted the proposed targets as “unachievable”.

The glass sector said that achieving the targets would depend on investment in infrastructure, but welcomed the proposal to set different glass targets according to whether it ends up in remelt or alternative uses such as aggregates.

For more on the recycling targets consultation, click here.

Click here for today’s headlines from across the packaging industry

Popular Articles