PaperChain's Reservations Over Strategy

PaperChain has shown serious concern with the Government's new Waste Strategy for England 2007 and, in particular, its liberal use of the term 'recycling'. It appears to focus on collection and sorting with continual reference to this as recycling, even though wastes are not recycled until they have been made into new products.

PaperChain claim that in order for the holistic carbon savings of recycling to be fully realised quality must be recognized in the Strategy, an issue that is not mentioned in detail. Instead, the quality of recycling appears to be left to Local Authority level decision making, where current economic drivers favour low cost collection and sorting over effective recylate preparation for recycling. Businesses are expected to use more recycled inputs, yet there is no apparent requirement for the waste management industry to ensure recycling and recovery facilities provide a quality product for use by business.

PaperChain also has issues with the move to use WRAP to set up a "Centre of Excellence on Export Materials" to help businesses maintain the value of recycled material and comply with controls on export of waste. Recovered paper is an internationally traded commodity with well-defined regulations on exports from the UK, and PaperChain think the regulators should manage it. They say that if the Government feels there are issues with movements of waste in breach of these regulations, they should be pursued by the due legal process rather than by a non-regulatory body.

Poor quality collection and sorting processes could produce further waste streams, but once exported these are no longer subject to the Government's duty of care principles, or to increasing landfill costs. This could lead to competition issues for UK reprocessors who will have to deal with these wastes within the UK economic framework and regulatory controls.

Martin Green, Chairman of PaperChain commented: "Poor quality recyclable paper, contaminated with [plastics, metals or glass], will impact on reprocessing efficiencies with negative carbon generation... UK reprocessors will have to manage waste streams generated from poor quality management through the collection process at an increasingly high cost to industry. Quality is at the heart of recycling; without it the UK is throwing away the basic principals of commercial, environmental and social sustainability."