PAFA claims that the Government’s recycling policy is muddled

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Trade body PAFA has called upon the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to improve its waste policy so that PAFA members can help the Government meet its packaging targets.

PAFA has stressed that the present Government policy sets a recycling target of 42 per cent for plastics by 2017, however it has not specified how the remaining 58 per cent will be dealt with.

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It believes that in order to achieve the required increase in recycling, substantial amounts of plastic pots, tubs, trays, and film need to be collected as well as more plastic bottles. This requires local councils that are not already offering the service to start doing so and those that are, to improve their collection rates of plastic.

Speaking at a Parliamentary reception, PAFA chief executive Barry Turner said: “In spite of all our efforts it was very disappointing to see Defra rush through a proposal that totally failed to address the key goal of diversion of plastics from landfill and instead just focused on setting a recycling target.

“Most frustrating was the fact that this was done before ACP (Advisory Committee on Packaging) and plastics taskforce had completed its work and the ACP had reported its findings.

“I am not alone in being amazed that any Government department can on the one hand require representatives of the entire supply and recovery chain to give up their valuable time to attend meetings over a twelve month period and contribute in good faith to a process which is then bypassed before their efforts are scheduled to be completed and reported. This will make the industry very wary of engaging with this department of Government in the future.”

The Parliamentary reception was attended by 30 parliamentarians from all parties including shadow ministers, members of select committees and constituency MP’s, major brand owners and retailers such as Marks and Spencer, Boots, Nestle and Müller.