Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2005

rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 24 November be approved [11th Report from the Joint Committee and 17th Report from the Merits Committee]. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the regulations set business recovery and recycling targets for packaging waste for the years 2006–10. The targets for 2008 are intended to enable the UK to meet its obligations under the EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste by the end of that year. The regulations consolidate the original 1997 instrument and subsequent amendments with a view to making the regulations more easily understood and accessible. The regulations also incorporate other changes designed to increase the amount of packaging subject to obligations. The regulations also contain provisions to reduce the burden on smaller businesses by giving them the option of having their recycling obligation allocated to them, rather than having to collate data, complete a data form and calculate their own recovery and recycling obligations. It is anticipated that this allocation option will reduce the administrative burden on, and the costs to, smaller businesses. Subject to your Lordships’ approval the regulations are intended to come into effect on 1 January, 2006. Since these producer responsibility regulations came into force in 1997, the UK’s packaging waste recovery rate has increased by 25 percentage points from 30 per cent to 55 per cent of the total UK packaging waste stream by the end of 2004. Recycling has risen to 50 per cent from about 27 per cent in 1997. The businesses concerned in making that happen are to be congratulated. However, recycling of packaging waste must increase further if we are to meet directive targets in 2008. We are often asked why we focus on increasing packaging waste recycling. Increased recycling is beneficial from the broader resource efficiency perspective and is a contributory factor in our efforts to tackle climate change. Your Lordships will not be immune to the spread of the use of drinks cans, which now seem to be an essential part of life. The House may be interested to know that manufacturing aluminium cans from recycled material takes only 5 per cent of the energy needed to manufacture them from the raw material. That provides a strong incentive to recycle cans and is just one example. About half of the 10 million tonnes of packaging waste arises in the household stream. One of the main challenges now is to ensure sufficient collection of lightweight, non-biodegradable packaging items such as cans—aluminium and steel—and plastic containers from households. That will require co-operative working between business and local authorities, but the more that that occurs and increases collection of packaging waste for recycling, the greater are the chances of the UK meeting the challenging 2008 packaging targets. The regulations require businesses of a certain size that use packaging to ensure that target levels of recovery and recycling of packaging waste are met each year. The more businesses and the more packaging that is within the scope of the regulations, the more that we can keep targets at a reasonable level. This is why the 2005 regulations before your Lordships place obligations on businesses that lease out packaging—such as palletes—and on those with franchise and similar licensed business arrangements including pub-operating companies. Before finalising the proposals, the Government undertook two major consultation exercises to seek views. The industry view has been very ably represented to the Government by the Advisory Committee on Packaging. In conclusion, the existing regulations have shown how effective producer responsibility schemes can be in implementing recovery and recycling targets at least cost to business and the 2005 regulations before the House will continue that trend. We also believe that the targets that we propose for 2006–2010, together with the other changes to the system, will enable the us to meet the next directive targets in 2008 in an efficient and cost-effective way. Finally, we believe that the resulting increases in packaging waste recovery and recycling will make an important contribution to the achievement of our own waste strategies and the sustainable development of our economy. I commend the regulations to your Lordships. I beg to move. Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 24 November be approved [11th Report from the Joint Committee and 17th Report from the Merits Committee].—(Lord Bach.)