Prismm Environmental warns of hike in packaging recycling costs

Prismm Environmental has warned that the cost to producers of packaging for recycling is set to rise quite substantially. Currently, approximately 10% of the cost of recycling is covered by the Packaging Recovery Note (PRN) system, but as Prismm MD Mike Jackson has pointed out: "It is now widely expected that the Resources and Waste Strategy from Defra will propose that costs of recycling covered by producers should increase to at least 80%.”

Jackson added: "We are already seeing the price of PRNs rise due to it being harder to find export markets now that countries such as China are no longer taking some materials for recycling. For example, a paper PRN has risen above £10 per tonne from less than £1 per tonne a few weeks ago. With the new Resources and Waste Strategy expected to be published in the autumn, the cost of obligation looks set to go even higher. "The National Audit Office has also issued its report The Packaging Recycling Obligations that said ‘there is no evidence that the [PRN] system has encouraged companies to minimise the use of packaging or make it easy to recycle'. This will put even more pressure on Defra to ensure that the Resources and Waste Strategy incentivises those that produce packaging to make it easier to recycle. This is likely to be done through higher obligation costs for those harder-to-recycle materials."