2006 Submission to ACP

Following years of lobbying UK government, including supportive MPs laying down Parliamentary Questions, the IPA was invited to make a presentation to the influential Government Advisory Committee on Packaging (ACP) at a formal hearing on 6th September 2006.

The following is an extract of the key details provided at that hearing. As yet (7 months on) we have yet to have any response from the ACP !....

Retail Packaging has little opportunity for Open Loop (Third Party) Re-Use. As such, no allowance is provided for obligations to be off-set (or for PRNs to be issued) for any re-use within an Open-Loop system.

Packaging must either be re-used in-house or destroyed for materials recycling or energy recovery.

What is so wrong with cleaning a package and selling it on to a Third Party?

Industrial Packaging has been repeatedly re-used used by Third Parties on Open Loop systems for many years. Unfortunately the current regulations give no credit for this – in spite of it being much more energy efficient than recycling.

This has led obligated companies towards recycling their used industrial packaging rather than having it reconditioned - creating a severe decrease in raw material for the UK reconditioning industry.

With thanks to our colleagues from the USA in the RIPA (Reusable Industrial Packaging Association) for use of the Greenhouse Gas Calculator.

FRANKIN ASSOCIATES GREENHOUSE GAS SAVINGS CALCULATOR

This calculates GHG savings associated with current use of reusable drums or change from single-use to reusable drums, based on comparison with baseline of 0.8/0.7/0.8 mm single-use drums.

Number of drum shipments lost from reconditioning to scrap recycling (1995 - 2005) = 1,481,500 drums

Typical weight of one reusable multi-trip drum (in lb):41.5lb

Calculated GHG savings through reconditioning multi-trip drums instead of using drums for a single-trip then scrap recycling:

28,856.3 tons CO2 (equivalent)

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