The UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra; www.gov.uk/defra) has announced that mandatory quality requirements for all material recycling facilities (MRFs) will be introduced this year. The move follows a consultation launched on 1 February 2013 that sought stakeholders’ views on the draft regulations – see Plasteurope.com of 19.02.2013. The revised rules will enter into force in March although the sampling and reporting requirements will apply from October.

The consultation received 88 responses, most of whom wanted government intervention to improve the transparency of information on material quality. The majority of respondents were from local authorities (42), followed by reprocessors and manufacturers (23) and waste management companies (11).

Under the revised regulations, amendments have been made to the definition of MRF as well as sampling requirements and frequency. Requirements for an external independent audit and the sampling of residual waste on health and safety grounds have been removed. The rules have retained the 1,000 t/y threshold and the non-sampling of material transferred between MRFs.

The government refrained from setting a minimum quality standard as it said market failure was a result of a lack of information on quality, which the regulations were designed to address. It added that it was continuing to explore amendments to the Packaging Waste Recovery Note (PRN) and Packaging Export Recovery Note (PERN) systems to even out the disparity between exports and domestic reprocessing.

Defra said the number of facilities that will now fall within the scope of the regulations has increased from 74 to 167. It estimated the costs of implementing the policy between GBP 5.75m and GBP 12.10m.

Plasteurope.com cooperation partner Plastics in Packaging reports that plastic recycling companies Eco Plastics (Hemswell / UK; www.ecoplasticsltd.com) and Closed Loop Recycling (Dagenham / UK; www.closedlooprecycling.co.uk) gave a cautious welcome to the rules although the former said it was dismayed at the government’s failure to back up the regulations with other key measures. Jonathan Short, deputy chairman and founder of Eco Plastics, said: “We are pleased that the government has understood the importance of tackling the declining quality of the UK’s waste stream and introduced a compulsory Code of Practice, and that the system will be actively policed by the Environment Agency. Full transparency through the publication of testing results is another important step that will pay dividends in increasing industry confidence.” However, he added that the sampling quantities and frequency of testing was a long way below what was needed for robustly measuring the quality of inputs and outputs. “There is a very real concern that MRFs that do not wish to comply will be able to flout the rules because of the extent to which the process has been watered down,” he said.

Chris Dow, CEO of Closed Loop Recycling, agreed. “The announcement is a step in the right direction, although we would still like to see it go further in helping us and our industry partners develop a sustainable business model where we can ensure that the UK is the recycling powerhouse of Europe,” he said.

e-Service:
Defra Consultation on draft Materials Recovery Facility Regulations for insertion into Environmental Permitting Regulations 2014 as a PDF file