Government agrees to lower plastics packaging recovery and reuse targets / Industry's fears addressed / BPF welcomes more time to review producer responsibility system / WRAP report on recovered plastics market

摘要

The UK government has agreed to lower recycling targets, meeting the British Plastics Federation (BPF, London / UK; www. bpf.co.uk) in the middle. In announcing its proposed budget for 2016, the government said the targets for plastic packaging would be lowered from the former plan for 57% of all collected material to be recycled by 2017. In a first step, the goal will be lowered to 49% for 2016 and raised by 2% annually to 57% by 2020. Another provision calls for a further reduction in corporate taxes. Under the current plan, new legislation will be introduced in parliament later this year to reset the recycling targets. For the BPF the goals were too ambitious. It had proposed an adjustment to the plastics packaging recycling targets to 48% for 2016, with subsequent 1% rises annually to 2020. This, the group said, "should provide more time to review the producer responsibility system in the light of stresses in the plastics recycling sector," where margins have suffered from sinking virgin polymer notations.