Stakeholders responding to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) consultation on a Code of Practice (CoP) for Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs), have voiced concerns over the ‘weak’ regulations and are calling on government to make the standards mandatory to all MRFs, irrespective of size.

The code, aimed at improving the quality of ‘dry’ recyclates (paper, glass, metal and plastic) from co-mingled collections of household and commercial waste in the UK, will make it mandatory for UK MRFs with an output of more than 1000 tonnes per annum to test the quality of their inputs and outputs. Despite calls for the contrary, the code does not specify any requirements to achieve recyclate specification targets.

In response to the consultation, which closed on Friday (26 April), trade bodies, including recycler ECO Plastics, have strongly supported the CoP being made mandatory and strengthened, adding it is ‘doomed to failure if firms can simply opt out’.

The MRF CoP was launched for consultation on February 1, alongside a Quality for Action Programme, to promote higher quality recyclate from MRFs.

Code ‘needs to be strenghtened’

Speaking on behalf of the Environmental Services Association (ESA), a trade body which helped draft the code and represents around half of all UK MRFs, Director of Policy, Matthew Farrow said: “Defra’s proposals for implementing the code are a good starting point but need to be strengthened to ensure the code delivers on the ground.”

Farrow stated that there should be ‘tougher enforcement’ of annual audits (undertaken by the Environment Agency, rather than MRFs); a ‘tighter sampling regime’ which includes increased sample sizes for the input and paper output streams; an increase in the ‘minimum time-based sampling frequency’; and an extension of the requirement for published sampling data to reprocessors.

He continued: “All these issues are technically complex and Defra needs to prepare the guidance which will accompany the regulations as a matter of urgency.

“Finally, it should be noted that MRFs are but one part of the supply chain and that all stakeholders need to take responsibility for ensuring a high quality of recyclates.”

The Resource Association, a trade body for the reprocessing and recycling industries and their supply chain, also voiced support for strengthening the draft regulations, with Chief Executive Ray Georgeson saying that the following changes were needed “in order to deliver the robust and credible regulatory regime needed”:

• removing ‘the 1000 tonnes de minimis’ to level the playing field for all MRF operators;
• increasing the proposed sample sizes for input and paper ‘fourfold’;
• publishing ‘urgently needed’ guidance on sampling methodology;
• mandating the Environment Agency to enforce the regulations through ‘twice yearly unannounced permitting enforcement visits’ and the power to take physical samples and to interview operatives and site management;
• including ‘MRF to MRF movements within the scope of the regulations’ to ‘avoid masking of the movement of poor quality recyclate’; and
• reducing ‘sampling arrangements for consistent compliant MRF operators… after full evaluation of the sampling regime adopted, which should come after two years of operation.’

Code will ‘collapse’ unless it applies to all MRFs

Recycler ECO Plastics also supported a mandatory MRF CoP, stating voluntary regulations ‘will negate the entire point of the scheme and continue the current deterioration in quality of the UK’s waste stream’.

CEO of ECO Plastics, Jonathan Short, explained: “The fact that some reprocessing markets can still accept a high degree of contamination means that those companies which choose to comply with voluntary standards will be undercut by their competitors. If they are forced to decide between maintaining quality and going out of business, you can predict which option they will choose. The scheme will collapse unless all MRFs have to meet minimum standards.”

The company highlighted the need for ‘a robust [unscheduled] testing regime’ that would see the summarised results ‘made publicly available’ to ensure standards are being met.

In conclusion, ECO Plastics said: “We can’t afford any further delays - the government must act quickly to implement a compulsory code in order to safeguard the UK industry… [it] must not throw away this golden opportunity to set the foundation for our industry’s future success.”

Read more about the MRF Code of Practice in Resource 71.