News

Falls in UK paper and board production and the UK's worst recession for decades have contributed to a 22% rise in exports of packaging waste over the last year.

Figures published on the Environment Agency's website show that in the second quarter of this year, 716,860 tonnes of packaging waste were exported for overseas reprocessing, a 22% rise on the 586,006 tonnes recorded in the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the quantity of waste accepted for UK reprocessing fell 18% from 1.1m tonnes in the second quarter of 2008 to 877,155 tonnes this year, according to the National Packaging Waste Database.

Steel and paper

The biggest change for a single material came in the paper and board category, where the amount of waste exported for overseas reprocessing rose by a third to 486,509 tonnes in the second quarter of 2009 from 365,312 tonnes last year.

Recovered steel exports, meanwhile, more than doubled to 62,329 tonnes over the year, reflecting the difficulties faced by UK industries such as the automotive and construction sectors.

Andrew Barnetson, corrugated sector manager at the Confederation of Paper Industries, told Packaging News that the figures for paper and board reflected a drop in demand over the last year from UK paper mills.

"There have been a number of mill closures in the last year, which over the last four to five quarters has taken around 100,000 tonnes of production capacity out of the UK," he said.

Closure and staff consultations announced in recent months include SCA's New Hythe mill, Mondi's Holcombe mill, International Paper's Inverurie mill and Rigid Paper's Selby mill. Click on mill names for further information.

Barnetson argued, though, that over the next 12 months increases in UK paper mill capacity - including DS Smith's new Kemsley mill in Kent, SAICA's mill near Manchester, and newsprint maker Palm Paper's mill in Norfolk - would lead to a reduction in exports.

Barnetson said that the biggest market for recovered paper exports was still Asia and in particular China, and said that he was confident that material exported to China was in fact being recycled once it got there.

The total amount of paper and board recovered rose slightly over the year, however. Barnetson said that this reflected the increasing recycling efforts by supermarkets.

'Perfectly normal'

Adrian Harding, policy advisor at the Environment Agency, said that the overall figures reflected the impact of the recession hitting UK demand and reprocessors looking for alternative markets for materials, especially in major manufacturers such as China and India.

"Packaging waste materials are generally traded commodities and these changes are a perfectly normal commercial process," he said. "The materials will follow the price and the demand."

He added that it was "encouraging" that new reprocessing capacity in a range of materials was coming onstream in the UK, at facilities such as Closed Loop London, Greenstar WES and the new paper mills.

A spokesperson for Wrap agreed that it was encouraging that export markets were being found for the materials. "While UK demand for recovered packaging paper and steel is depressed the export figures show that these materials are managing to find recycling end markets overseas.

"Exports of glass and plastic are down but these materials are still finding markets in the UK. Longer term trends indicate a potential increase in packaging materials being exported for recycling and this provides a valuable outlet while the domestic industry develops.

"Recycling capacity continues to be built in the UK across all recycled materials, not just packaging.  For example, Palm’s newsprint mill in Norfolk comes on stream in the Autumn and is expected to recycle 500,000 tonnes per year of newspapers and magazines.

"The market demand for plastic bottles is higher than ever, particularly for reprocessing to food grade polymers for packaging, and capacity is expected to increase significantly in the next few years."

Energy from waste

Waste recovered through energy from waste plants showed a 15% increase over the year to reach 117,407 tonnes in the second quarter of the year.

Exports of plastics, meanwhile, fell from 96,548 tonnes in Q2 2008 to 88,684 tonnes in Q2 2009.

Overall, the total amount of waste recovered or recycled changed little, edging down from 1,749,751 tonnes in the second quarter of 2008 to 1,711,420 tonnes this year.

Click here to download the full Q2 figures from the Environment Agency website