Exports, Recyclate Quality And Sustainable Markets
The forum was prompted by the growing interest in the role of export markets, their long term stability and the standards of reprocessing in the recipient countries. Roy Hathaway, Deputy Director of Defra’s Wastes Management Division, opened the debate and guest speakers included Liz Parkes, Head of Waste at the Environment Agency; Mike Jefferson, Director of Operations at Valpak and Jeff Chan, Marketing manager of MLM Ltd, trading as ACN Europe (UK). Input from the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) was given by Alison Butler, Waste Policy Manager, Vale Royal Borough Council.
As the UK’s foremost recycling advisory organisation, WRAP is taking a lead role in instigating discussion among the key players, including policy makers, legislators, exporters and importers. Speaking at the event, WRAP’s Chief Executive Liz Goodwin said:
“Quality is the cornerstone of effective recycling. It is essential that all those involved work together to continuously improve standards. While strong domestic markets are a priority, export markets will continue to be an important route for internationally traded materials. It is essential that any exports of recycled materials are legal and transparent: this is the key to establishing long term sustainable markets and maintaining public confidence.”
Centre of expertise
WRAP’s aim is to provide a centre for expertise1 on international markets, ensuring that recyclers and reprocessors have a single source of reliable and independent information on which to base commercial decisions. Liz Goodwin explained:
“As recycling rates increase, there is a collective responsibility for all those involved to find sustainable and environmentally sound outlets for recovered materials. Selecting the best practical environmental option can only be achieved based on robust data and WRAP wants to ensure that the information is available for people to make an informed judgement.”
As part of this remit WRAP has commissioned in-depth research into export markets for recovered materials. The findings of three reports – on glass, paper and plastics – were presented during the forum.
Assessment of the International Trading Markets for Recycled Glass revealed that Intra-Europe trade of cullet makes economic and environmental sense but the case for export outside of Europe – although it provides greater CO2 savings than domestic aggregates use – is currently more marginal from an economic perspective.
Domestic use in the manufacture of glass fibre insulation is environmentally and economically attractive but export and fibre use together may still not be able to absorb all the additional glass collected, meaning that alternative markets will continue to need to be developed. However, where cullet is used in aggregates there is a cost in terms of missed environmental benefit.
The Assessment of the UK Export Market for Recovered Paper projected that UK collections of RCF (recovered fibre) will grow by 20 per cent over the period to 2015, from 8 million tonnes to over 10 million tonnes. Given the high level of RCF utilisation by UK paper mills and the continuing contraction in the paper manufacturing sector, it is likely that all the additional fibre collected (and perhaps more) will be exported, leading RCF exports from the UK to grow from 4 million tonnes to around 6 million tonnes.
Almost half of UK’s exports currently are to China, and this share is likely to grow further in line with the projected growth of the Chinese market. A key challenge for the UK in both its domestic and export markets for paper is to achieve a sustainable supply of quality materials.
Recycled Plastics: UK Supply and Demand predicts that UK collections of recovered plastic packaging are likely to double between 2005 and 2015 to reach 800,000 tonnes a year. In 2006, the UK exported 440,000 tonnes of plastics with a value of £95 million. At least two thirds of the packaging plastics collected were exported.
Strong overseas demand for plastics and high oil prices (hence virgin polymer prices) have led to increases in recovered polymer prices which have made it more difficult for domestic reprocessors to compete and, as with paper, developments in the global market for recovered polymers are likely to be heavily influenced by conditions in China.
Copies of the full reports from the glass, paper and plastic export markets research, as well as details of future events to discuss international market topics, will be made available on WRAP’s website www.wrap.org.uk/internationalmarkets
Editor's notes:
WRAP’s centre for export expertise will give businesses and policymakers the information they need to:
- keep track of and respond to changes in international markets for recovered materials to safeguard the UK’s position in the export markets; - identify new export opportunities; - plan investment to ensure that there is the necessary capacity in place to supply materials of an appropriate quality at a competitive price; and - determine for which materials the development of domestic reprocessing capacity needs to be prioritised. The information provided by the centre may also enable domestic reprocessors to compete more effectively with overseas demand if there is a scarcity of material and enable collectors to maximise the revenue they are realising from the sale of their materials.
WRAP works in partnership to encourage and enable businesses and consumers to be more efficient in their use of materials and recycle more things more often. This helps to minimise landfill, reduce carbon emissions and improve our environment.
Established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, WRAP is backed by Government funding from Defra and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Working in seven key areas (Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Organics, Business Growth, Behavioural Change, and Local Authority Support), WRAP’s work focuses on market development and support to drive forward recycling and materials resource efficiency within these sectors, as well as wider communications and awareness activities including the multi-media national Recycle Now campaign for England.
WRAP established the Manufacturing team in April 2006 to maximise the amount and quality of recyclate used by UK manufacturing operations. In WRAP’s 2006-2008 Business Plan, the Manufacturing team’s aim is to secure an additional 220,000 tonnes a year of increased use of recyclate by the UK manufacturing sector.
More information on all of WRAP’s programmes can be found at www.wrap.org.uk
Alison Jones
Media Relations Manager (temp)
WRAP
Tel: 01295 819928
alison.jones@wrap.org.uk
