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Recycling targets jeopardised by new landfill tax
30 September 1996
" The Government will fail to reach its 25 per cent recycling rate unless It acts tough on waste now. It must increase the landfill tax substantially and extend it to cover incineration, and it must come down hard on the wasteful packaging industry. If the Government doesn't do these things then we will continue to waste valuable resources by sending them up in smoke or throwing them into holes in the ground."
NOTES TO EDITORS:
[1] The landfill tax will be introduced on October 1st and will be administered by Customs& Excise. Domestic waste will be taxed at £7 per tonne.
[2] The Government has issued a consultation on The Producer Responsibility Obligations (packaging waste) Regulations which, if implemented as they stand at present, will set a 15 per cent recycling target for paper, metal, glass & plastic packaging by 2001 and an overall packaging recycling rate of 25 per cent. The consultation closed on 30th September.
The regulations will implement EC Directive 94/62/EC. The EC gives member states a duty to set a packaging recycling targets between 25 per cent and 45 per cent, with a minimum recycling rate of 15 per cent for each material (metal, glass, paper, plastic and wood). The Government has failed in its consultation to set a target for wood recycling.
Packaging accounts for 20% of household waste.
[3] Department of the Environment, Digest of Environmental Statistics, No 17, 1995.
[4] Department of the Environment, Making Waste Work, December 1995.
[5] Producer Responsibility Group, The PRG Plan: Real Value from Packaging Waste,November 1994.
[6] Department of the Environment, Landfill Costs and Prices: Correcting Possible Market Distortions, A Study by Coopers & Lybrand, 1993.
[7] Waste Policy Center, Virginia, USA, Recycling in America...The 25 % Solution, 1996.
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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Sep 2008
