‘We can meet ambitions of Waste Review’
From Packaging News
Recycling minister Lord Taylor of Holbeach has said he is confident in government's and industry's ability to improve recycling rates, as he looked to reassure the sector that Defra supports packaging.
Speaking at the Foodservice Packaging Association's annual Environment Seminar yesterday, Lord Taylor - who himself owns a seed packing business - said that the packaging industry would play a key role in helping reach the ambitious recycling targets laid out in the Waste Review that was published before Christmas.
He also reassured the audience that the consultation on the targets - which include a proposed target for plastics recycling of 57% by 2017 compared to 32% in 2012, as well as higher rates for metals - was a "genuine" consultation.
The minister, who took on the waste and recycling brief last September, acknowledged that on plastic packaging recycling targets there were "challenges to be overcome, especially on non-bottle plastic".
Responsibility deal
But he said that work had begun on a responsibility deal on plastic packaging. "I'm confident that the industry, working together with Wrap, are in the best place to meet the challenge," he said.
He added that he expected a similar move for metals. Under the Waste Review's proposals, aluminium recycling rates would rise to 55% in 2017 from 40% in 2012, while rates for steel would rise to 76% in 2017 from 71% in 2012.
He said: "The Waste Review has set out our ambitions... I can't deny that this is a difficult and complex part of my brief to master, but the Waste Review has given us a roadmap and I'm confident that together we can meet the challenge."
Delegates at the event were less confident that a 57% target for plastic recycling was realistic; a show of hands during a panel discussion later in the day, that was chaired by PN editor Josh Brooks, suggested that not one thought the target could be reached.
'Really important'
Elsewhere in his speech to an audience made up primarily of foodservice packaging suppliers, Lord Taylor underlined to delegates that Defra supported the packaging industry.
"Food manufacturing is the single biggest industry in the country. You are a really important part of that industry," he said. "We really understand why packaging has to be used."
Lord Taylor was also challenged on a statement made on packaging before Christmas by local government minister Grant Shapps, in which he called on every supermarket to "commit to culling packaging by this time last year" and spoke of the need to dispose of 10m packs containing "trussed-up turkeys" after Christmas.
The statement was seen by some in the packaging sector as evidence of a lack of understanding of packaging's role in the supply chain. Lord Taylor, however, said he was speaking to Shapps regularly on the issue of recycling.
"We are working together to increase recycling rates and to remove people's anxiety about collections and food waste," he said.
Panel debate
Lord Taylor's speech was followed by presentations from Richard Swannell of Wrap, John Williams of the NNFCC and Dick Searle of the Packaging Federation.
A panel discussion closed the event, covering wide-ranging issues such as how and whether to communicate packaging's environmental benefits to consumers, the voluntary agreement on reducing food and packaging waste in the hospitality sector that Wrap is currently working on, and the challenge to the foodservice sector from lower-cost competitors in international markets.
