The British Retail Consortium is urging Government to ‘go back to the drawing board’ and rethink crucial parts of its proposed recycling reforms, highlighting major concerns surround the plans over the packaging Extended Producer Responsibility scheme.
Retailers from across the UK have expressed their issues with the current look of the scheme – planned to come into force in April next year – stating that ‘without significant investment in recycling infrastructure in Britain, households in the UK could be footing the bill for EPR.’
This would be achieving the opposite of what EPR is being introduced for, shifting the cost of end-of-life processing for packaging and products from the consumer and onto the producer. However, the UK retail landscape states that this will only be effective is meaningful improvements are made to UK recycling rates.
Major retailers are calling on the Government to fix the problem. At a cost of at least £1.7bn per year, businesses want a new EPR scheme that ‘significantly increases the use of recycled materials in new packaging’ as they try to meet their ambitious sustainability goals.
The Consortium has so far expressed little confidence in DEFRA’s current proposals for EPR stating they ‘lack ambition’ and ‘fail to set out how an effective, efficient, national, and fit-for-the-future recycling system will be created in the UK.’ Among the concerns is how EPR funds would be ring-fenced to stop local councils diverting funds away from recycling to other budget streams.
‘Only by protecting these recycling revenues will the UK be able to drive the scale of investment needed to upgrade our recycling infrastructure and deliver long-term growth for local recycling capabilities,’ state the BRC.
Retailers are also calling for changes to the way the system is managed, to bring the UK in line with the best recycling schemes around the world, such as the high performing schemes found in areas of Europe and Canada. These systems see businesses made responsible for running their running, to drive overall cost-efficiency and increase investment that would ensure a reliable supply of recycled materials are available for use in future packaging.
Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said: “It’s time that Government went back to the drawing board. We have the opportunity to get it right on the future of a waste management scheme that will determine UK recycling rates for a generation. We want to see a scheme which improves recycling in the UK and ensures a steady supply of recyclable material that can be reused for future packaging.
“Under existing proposals, funding meant for UK recycling could end up servicing local authority debt or be put to uses which do not improve our national recycling infrastructure. Government’s haste to introduce a new system is undermining the system itself. It’s time to work with retailer and manufacturers to ensure the public get a world class recycling system that collects and processes as much recyclable material as possible.”
