The “Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations” were introduced into UK law in 1997 in order to implement EU Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste. The aims of the Regulations are to:
•
Reduce the amount of packaging
•
Reuse packaging
•
Increase recovery and recycling of packaging
•
Reduce the amount of packaging
that is landfilled
•
Encourage the use of recycled
packaging material
The first objective of the Directive required the UK to recover 50% of its packaging waste and recycle 25% of its packaging waste by 2001. The table below illustrates how the UK actually performed:
UK PERFORMANCE AGAINST 2001 TARGETS
Tonnes
Target
Performance
Total
Recycling
3,917,560
25%
42%
Total
Recovery
4,462,240
50%
47.9%
The second objective of the Directive requires the UK to increase the rates of recovery and recycling of its packaging waste to an overall level of 60% recovery and 55% recycling by 2008.
However, due to an amendment made to the Regulations
in 2003, new and unique recycling targets were
introduced for each specific packaging material:
paper, glass, aluminium, steel, plastic and
wood. The table below illustrates the EU targets
set for the UK to achieve by 2008:
2008
EU TARGETS
Target
Paper
60%
Glass
60%
Aluminium
50%*
Steel
50%*
Plastic
22.5%
Wood
15%
Minimum
Recycling
55%
Overall
Recovery
60%
* The 50% target is for all “metal” packaging, which in the scope of the Regulations refers to both aluminium and steel packaging. Therefore the combined total tonnage of aluminium and steel packaging that is required to be recycled is 50%.
The “Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations” were introduced into UK law in 1997 in order to implement EU Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste. The aims of the Regulations are to:
