CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Much work still needed in UK, paper says / Extended Producer Responsibility is key / Packaging waste cleanup costs exceed GBP 100m annually in England / All parts of supply chain must work together
Embracing the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for single-use products, a principal component of the European Commission’s plans for a Circular Economy could produce many benefits for the UK, whether or not it stays in the singular economy post-Brexit, says the Environmental Services Association (ESA, London; www.esauk.com). Making manufacturers take responsibility for a product at the end of its life can offer a “timely opportunity” to relieve some of the burdens on cash-strapped local councils, provided the system is designed properly, the organisation says in a new policy paper entitled “The Role of Extended Producer Responsibility in Tackling Litter in the UK.”
Examining the extent of the problem, ESA says cleaning parks and streets and closing highways to collect litter currently costs local authorities GBP 800m (EUR 942m) annually in England alone – the figures do not include Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Applying EPR to the “biggest and most intractable litter sources” – cigarette butts, chewing gum and food and drinks packaging – could save around GBP 300m each year, it calculates. Single-trip fast food, drink and confectionary packaging is seen as contributing strongly to the litter problem in England, affecting 80% of sites surveyed for the paper. Waste cleanup costs for these products alone are calculated at more than GBP 100m. To fight littering and enhance consumer awareness, ESA recommends introducing a levy on packaging manufacturers, with the fee covering the cost of cleanup.
Projecting a future UK society, ESA sketches a vision in which 80% of new goods have been designed to maximise recycled content, and waste is used as a raw material in the manufacturing process. This, it says, would reduce the need to import materials – an important point for a standalone economy. Residual waste generated after manufacturers reduce their own production scrap could be processed into fuels and used as energy. Implementing all of these concepts, the calculation goes, could enable manufacturers to reduce raw materials input by more than 38m t by 2025 and possibly generate savings to the economy of EUR 23 bn.
On the retail side, the authors point to the need for the waste and resources industry to provide the recycling infrastructure for shoppers to return materials to the economy. Also, they note that eco-labelling would help consumers identify products with high recycled content and thus encourage retailers to make the switch to more readily recyclable products. If all retailers matched the recycling performance of the best, some 2.5m t of additional recyclate valued at GBP 250m could be collected, the paper suggests.
In ESA’s vision, recycling of all waste streams would take place at multi-stream material recovery facilities, and the UK would develop a strong domestic reprocessing and manufacturing sector. Here, again, the country would be “less reliant on export markets to sustain higher recycling rates.” The paper also foresees more than 30,000 jobs being created in new recycling and energy sectors across the UK. While it estimates that about 395m t of potentially recyclable material will pass through England’s waste management sector up to 2020, given current trends only 255m t of this could be successfully returned to the economy. However, capturing the remaining 140m t of recyclable resources could generate GBP 1.4 bn in additional recyclate revenue, it believes.
Currently, about half of all UK waste still goes to landfill, the paper says. Quoting research by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP, Banbury / UK; www.wrap.org.uk), it says businesses are slow to take up resource efficiency measures in part because demand for packaging products made in the country remains limited. Also, it says, the reprocessing industry has already taken many of the “easy wins.” At present, some 50% of plastic bottles are recycled, but only 10% of pots and trays – their composition is said to impair cost effectiveness.
The economic and business case for moving towards a circular economy is “overwhelming,” the ESA paper concludes, citing the McKinsey report for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (Cowes / UK; www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org), which projects a global economic benefit of USD 2 tr. But the circular economy can be achieved only if all parts of the supply chain work together, the authors stress. To provide an overview of steps that need to be taken towards a lower-waste economy, they asked stakeholders in the design, manufacturing, retail and waste collection and reprocessing sectors for their views. These are presented at the end of the paper, giving an in-a-nutshell glance at the hurdles that still must be overcome.
e-Service:
ESA paper “The Role of Extended Producer Responsibility in Tackling Litter in the UK" as a PDF file
Examining the extent of the problem, ESA says cleaning parks and streets and closing highways to collect litter currently costs local authorities GBP 800m (EUR 942m) annually in England alone – the figures do not include Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Applying EPR to the “biggest and most intractable litter sources” – cigarette butts, chewing gum and food and drinks packaging – could save around GBP 300m each year, it calculates. Single-trip fast food, drink and confectionary packaging is seen as contributing strongly to the litter problem in England, affecting 80% of sites surveyed for the paper. Waste cleanup costs for these products alone are calculated at more than GBP 100m. To fight littering and enhance consumer awareness, ESA recommends introducing a levy on packaging manufacturers, with the fee covering the cost of cleanup.
Projecting a future UK society, ESA sketches a vision in which 80% of new goods have been designed to maximise recycled content, and waste is used as a raw material in the manufacturing process. This, it says, would reduce the need to import materials – an important point for a standalone economy. Residual waste generated after manufacturers reduce their own production scrap could be processed into fuels and used as energy. Implementing all of these concepts, the calculation goes, could enable manufacturers to reduce raw materials input by more than 38m t by 2025 and possibly generate savings to the economy of EUR 23 bn.
On the retail side, the authors point to the need for the waste and resources industry to provide the recycling infrastructure for shoppers to return materials to the economy. Also, they note that eco-labelling would help consumers identify products with high recycled content and thus encourage retailers to make the switch to more readily recyclable products. If all retailers matched the recycling performance of the best, some 2.5m t of additional recyclate valued at GBP 250m could be collected, the paper suggests.
In ESA’s vision, recycling of all waste streams would take place at multi-stream material recovery facilities, and the UK would develop a strong domestic reprocessing and manufacturing sector. Here, again, the country would be “less reliant on export markets to sustain higher recycling rates.” The paper also foresees more than 30,000 jobs being created in new recycling and energy sectors across the UK. While it estimates that about 395m t of potentially recyclable material will pass through England’s waste management sector up to 2020, given current trends only 255m t of this could be successfully returned to the economy. However, capturing the remaining 140m t of recyclable resources could generate GBP 1.4 bn in additional recyclate revenue, it believes.
Currently, about half of all UK waste still goes to landfill, the paper says. Quoting research by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP, Banbury / UK; www.wrap.org.uk), it says businesses are slow to take up resource efficiency measures in part because demand for packaging products made in the country remains limited. Also, it says, the reprocessing industry has already taken many of the “easy wins.” At present, some 50% of plastic bottles are recycled, but only 10% of pots and trays – their composition is said to impair cost effectiveness.
The economic and business case for moving towards a circular economy is “overwhelming,” the ESA paper concludes, citing the McKinsey report for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (Cowes / UK; www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org), which projects a global economic benefit of USD 2 tr. But the circular economy can be achieved only if all parts of the supply chain work together, the authors stress. To provide an overview of steps that need to be taken towards a lower-waste economy, they asked stakeholders in the design, manufacturing, retail and waste collection and reprocessing sectors for their views. These are presented at the end of the paper, giving an in-a-nutshell glance at the hurdles that still must be overcome.
e-Service:
ESA paper “The Role of Extended Producer Responsibility in Tackling Litter in the UK" as a PDF file
29.11.2016 Plasteurope.com [235626-0]
Published on 29.11.2016