Plans to make manufacturers pay full costs of recycling their packaging and develop consistent household collections nationwide unveiled
Long-awaited details underpinning key elements of the government's waste-busting agenda were finally unveiled yesterday in a wave of consultations on measures to boost bottle recycling, develop a consistent recycling collections nationwide, and make manufactures pay towards recycling the packaging they produce.
The government said it was seeking to add these further powers to its Environment Bill, which is expected complete its journey through Parliament to become law later this year after several delays.
The wide-ranging proposals include plans to make manufacturers pay the full costs of managing and recycling their packaging waste from 2023, with higher fees potentially being levied if packaging is harder to reuse or recycle, the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed.
The proposals are the latest extended producer responsibility (EPR) scheme to be touted by the government to help improve resource efficiency and recycling rates, after it last week announced a similar scheme for the fashion industry to take more responsibility for the textile waste it produces.
In addition, the government reiterated plans to introduce a consistent system for recycling collections for all households and businesses in England, with a view to launching a consultation on the plans "shortly". It comes in response to long-held concerns that the wide variation of household recycling systems across England is confusing, captures inconsistent mixes of materials, and may be hampering efforts to boost recycling levels that have largely flatlined for the past decade.
Earlier this month, the latest official statistics for last year show the UK recycled 45.5 per cent of household waste, having stayed at broadly the same level for several years running and seen the country miss its target to achieve a 50 per cent recycling rate by the end of 2020.
A third consultation today also sets out proposals to establish a deposit return scheme (DRS) across England, Wales and Northern Ireland that would offer consumers incentives to bring back their used plastic, glass or metal drinks containers to where they first purchased them in order to be recycled. However, campaigners were left frustrated at the sluggish timetable for the introduction of the long-touted scheme, which will now not be introduced until 2024.
Environment Secretary George Eustice said the forthcoming Environment Bill, the details of which are still being awaited by Parliamentarians after the legislation was again delayed earlier this year, would transform the way the UK deals with waste.
He also said the plan outlined today would help the UK "build back better from the pandemic" and "boost our global leadership in tackling climate change and plastic pollution" ahead of the COP26 Climate Summit later this year.
"These new changes will further ensure that more of what we consume is recycled and reused," he said. "They will stimulate the creation of alternatives to single-use plastics and establish consistent rules to help people recycle more easily across the country."
Confirming the rollout of the DRS nationwide would now be pushed back into 2024, the government argued the Covid-19 pandemic had forced it to delay implementation by over a year beyond its original target date of 2023. Scotland, meanwhile, is set to launch its own DRS in 2022.
Friends of the Earth's plastics campaigner Camilla Zerr said an effective DRS was crucial to combatting plastic pollution in the UK, but warned the government's proposals were too weak and too slow, arguing the scheme should be rolled out by 2023 as originally intended.
"We need an 'all in' scheme that includes bottles, cans and cartons of every size and every material," she said. "Ministers must stand up to industry lobbying because delaying the scheme until 2024 will create even more unnecessary waste and pollution."
But the measures were broadly welcomed by the recycling sector, including John Scanlon, CEO of SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, who said the reforms would "bring about the biggest change to our sector in well over a decade".
"These keenly awaited consultations will be critical to transforming our approach to the way we make, consume and dispose of products and their packaging, moving us along the road to a more circular economy and our 2050 net zero ambition," he said.