Annex B
PACKAGING WASTE AND BIODEGRADABLE PLASTICS
1. The EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging
Waste (94/62/EC) came into force in 1994. The Directive required
at least 50% of packaging waste, by weight, to be recovered by
2001, at least half of which must be recycled, with a 15% minimum
recycling per material. Parts of the Directive, including the
recovery and recycling targets, were implemented in Great Britain
through "The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging
Waste) Regulations 1997" ("the packaging Regulations")
which came into force on 6 March 1997; parallel Regulations were
made in Northern Ireland.
2. A business is obligated under the packaging
Regulations if it has a turnover of more than £2 million
pounds in its last audited accounts, and if it handled more than
50 tonnes of packaging or packaging material in the previous calendar
year. The obligated business must take reasonable steps to recover
and recycle a specified tonnage of packaging waste each year.
The business must also register with the Environment Agency or
the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, and certify annually
to the relevant agency that the required tonnages of packaging
waste have been recovered and recycled.
3. Although the Government cannot impose
a legal limit on the amount or type of packaging a producer chooses
for his product, (eg, plastic for plastic bags) the packaging
Regulations do include incentives for businesses to minimise the
amount of packaging they use because where they reduce the amount
of packaging used they will also reduce their costs of complying
with their obligation. As a result, since the packaging Regulations
came into force many shops, particularly supermarkets have introduced
the "bag for life", with a view to using less plastic
and getting more back for recycling.
4. Packaging regulations also address the
fact that consumer education and awareness has an important part
to play in reducing packaging and increasing recycling. The "consumer
information obligations" in the Regulations require businesses
whose main activity is "selling" (eg retailers), to
provide specific information to consumers. This information, relates,
for example, to the return, collection and recovery systems that
are available to them, and what the consumer's role can be in
contributing to increased reuse of packaging and increased recovery
and recycling of packaging waste. While the Regulations have clearly
had an effect on plastic bag usage, and the new tightened version
will continue to ratchet up that effect, this approach suffers
from a lack of visibility and direct relationship to the litter
and nuisance problems caused by plastic bags.
5. Currently, the packaging Directive is
being revised with a view to introducing new recovery and recycling
targets for the next five-year period—the deadline to be
either 2006 or 2008. The quantity of plastic packaging waste that
is recycled will have to increase to meet these targets. It is
expected that from around 2005-06, inroads will have to be made
on plastic packaging waste from the household waste stream.
BIO-DEGRADABLE
PLASTIC
6. The majority of degradable plastics available
to the market today are based on conventional plastics prepared
from mineral oil. They contain additives that cause the plastic
to break down under the action of sunlight, temperature or mechanical
stress. Once the physical degradation starts the material is then
open to biodegradation when placed in a suitable environment eg
a compost heap. So these materials are both degradable and biodegradable.
The degradation products are carbon dioxide and water, so no biomass
is produced.
7. There is probably a wide range of niche
products and applications, for example in agriculture and horticulture,
marine and packaging applications where degradability would be
a benefit when considering disposal options. However, it is not
clear that this approach is a sustainable answer to the general
problem of managing plastics waste.
8. While the advantages of the ability of
certain types of plastic products to biodegrade on disposal may
appear be to immediately obvious, the waste strategy for England
and Wales, Waste Strategy 2000, emphasises the need to gain more
value from waste through re-use, recycling, composting and the
recovery of energy. Most degradable plastics, which are specifically
designed for disposal, with no beneficial recovery potential,
run counter to this approach.
9. The concept of a biodegradable plastic
concedes that a resource (in this case the mineral oil from which
the bulk of plastics are manufactured) will be deliberately and
totally lost. Since plastics are manufactured from a fossil fuel
resource, there is a release of carbon dioxide from the decomposition
of a degradable formulation. Public response to biodegradable
products may also become an issue. People may actually be encouraged
to dispose of biodegradable plastic products in an irresponsible
manner, believing it doesn't matter because the litter will disappear.
10. However the Government does support
the development of biodegradable plastics from non-fossil sources.
The Government Industry Forum on Non-Food Uses of Crops was set
up in March 2001 to provide strategic advice to Government and
industry on the development of non-food uses of crops. The Forum
has examined the UK potential to produce compostable packaging
materials from mainstream agricultural crops and has concluded
that there is a clear opportunity for both UK agriculture and
industry to develop these materials. The Forum is developing a
series of recommendations designed to encourage industry to respond
and develop to supply an expanding market. A number of companies
are bringing plastic type products made from corn or potato starch
to the market.
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