The news came from the Environment Agency, which revealed yesterday that five companies, who were not named, had “been identified as not meeting their obligations” under the PRN and PERN systems. “The relevant agencies are investigating,” the statement said.
The news came as figures on packaging recycling and recovery for 2012 were published.
The data showed that, while all targets for the year had been met, total recycling in 2012 was 6.49m tonnes, slightly down on the 2011 figure of 6.52m tonnes.
Total material recovery also slipped in 2012 to 6.97m tonnes from a figure of 7.00m tonnes in 2011.
While steel and wood recycling were marginally up, all other materials listed – paper, glass, aluminium and plastics – were marginally down for the year.
Click here to download the full data from the EA website
The drops come in the same year that the government pushed through ambitious recycling targets for 2017 that include, for instance, a requirement for plastics recycling to grow by 5% every year for the next five years.
Commenting on the figures, Incpen director Jane Bickerstaffe said: “The fact that the rate of collection has slowed should act as a stimulus to get more consumer participation in collecting the main materials in kerbside and away-from-home.”
However, she warned against reading long-term trends into the figures. “If you look at the packaging recycling rates across Europe over the last 10 years there are peaks and troughs. We need to appreciate that recycling rates are bound to vary depending on the economy, end-use demand, geography, density of population and even the weather.”
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In the ideal world all plastics, whatever their colour or material should be collected at the kerbside. Yet in my own area only HDPE milk bottles are collected – all other plastics being excluded – surely it’s not a question of consumer participation but a council-wide seamless collection procedure with no exclusions.