Pushing the message on packaging waste

In a world of corporate social responsibility and far-reaching green policies, the last thing any firm wants is a newspaper headline that suggests it has not been doing its bit for the environment.

In July, energy drinks producer Red Bull’s failure to comply with packaging waste rules over an eight-year period became public knowledge. The company’s name was splashed across trade magazines and national newspapers when it was hit with a record £271,800 fine under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations.

Red Bull might be the biggest fine, but it is certainly not the only prosecution; brands both big and small are regularly fined by magistrates’ courts in convictions brought by the Environment Agency.

“It’s about protecting those firms that are doing the right thing on packaging waste,” says Environment Agency (EA) policy advisor Adrian Harding. “Otherwise, they can find themselves in competition with firms that are not on a level playing field.”

The EA has been responsible for policing the regulations since they were introduced in 1997 and Harding admits there have been free riders since day one. Whether it is done deliberately or is because of a lack of awareness of the rules, not registering with a waste compliance scheme or the Environment Agency is a criminal offence that can land an unlimited fine.

The big issue
But the organisation says it is not out to get firms that have simply missed a tonne or two of material off their
declaration. “We’re not looking at menial transgressions, but people who have not contributed for several years,” says Harding.

The Environment Agency issues a press statement following every waste prosecution, and the fines are typically based on the amount a firm has avoided paying, plus a penalty. But the organisation has been criticised for not doing enough to raise awareness of the regulations and relying on the impact of the negative headlines.

Harding defends the work done to promote the rules through online sources such as NetRegs, compliance scheme advertising campaigns and work with trade bodies in specific sectors. “The regulations shouldn’t come as a great surprise to firms, although it can be difficult in industries where there is no trade association,” he says.

Compliance cut-off
Small firms, which do not have designated packaging design teams, are perhaps most likely not to sign up to a compliance scheme. The cut-off point for a company to comply – use of 50 tonnes of packaging a year, and a turnover that exceeds £2m – exists to make the scheme more efficient, although does mean the other firms have to contribute slightly more. “Hopefully, having a cut-off means there are not a lot of little firms that incur the costs, but bring little to the table. What you don’t want is the industry cost of administrating the regulations to outweigh the benefits,” says Harding.

The downside to the cut-off is, obviously, measuring it. Turnover is fairly easy to assess, but accurately measuring packaging usage requires more work. This year might be particularly difficult to assess because of the impact the recession is having on the volumes of product that are traded. “More companies are ceasing to trade and fewer are coming on line. People’s packaging usage starts to decline, but it will be difficult to tease out how much of that is down to the recession or changing business practice,” says Harding.

Remember who’s responsible
But it is not just small firms that fall foul of the rules. Harding suggests that many firms fail to meet their obligations because they believe someone else has done it. “Because it’s an annual process, it’s easy for things to go wrong and it’s important to have some reliance built in,” he says. A firm might forget to replace the person responsible for registering if he or she leaves, and Harding suggests keeping as much in writing as possible and ensuring more than one person is aware of the obligations to ensure compliance. “A commonly misunderstood issue is about groups of companies as well as individual ones. Someone in the smaller subsidiaries might think head office is registering on their behalf,” he says.

The Environment Agency hopes that a fresh consultation on the regulations, which should take place later this year, will provide a good opportunity to remind firms about the need for compliance. But the fact remains the rules are working as they were designed to do, namely to encourage packaging reduction and promote recycling. In 1998, about 28% of packaging in the UK was recycled. Last year, that figure passed 65% and the regulations can take some credit for that.

“It’s generally recognised that the UK’s approach to the European packaging directive is one of the lowest-cost approaches in Europe,” says Harding. “The regime is being actively enforced and delivering the environmental outcome.”

TOTAL PACKAGING WASTE FINES
1999 £4,850
2000 £64,129
2001 £212,950
2002 £470,505
2003 £189,697
2004 £231,458
2005 £211,200
2006 £471,500
2007 £705,096
2008 £692,545

Source: Environment Agency

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