LAWR

BRIEFING Recent developments could Resource management stakeholders may have failed to take notice of several important announcements busy summer or returned from their holidays only to attend RWM and blinked. Here, Chris Dow argues esource manage- ment' and 'circular economy' are terms that never seem to be off the news pages of the key trade press. Despite this, having announced their priorities ahead of the next general election, none of the main political parties seem to have given them the priority they rightly deserve. Yet all is not entirely lost. Whilst Resource Minister Dan Rogerson has been busy with his other duties over the past few months, the waste and recycling industry has seen a number of significant announcements which combined could quite literally trans- form the UK's domestic recycling industry and put us on the right path to better managing our resources and moving towards a circular economy. Broadly Equivalent At the end of July this year, the Environment Agency (EA) announced that it would be enforcing the 'broad- ly equivalent' expectations of waste exporters. It released data showing checks on waste containers destined for export have increased by over 400% year-on-year – which is obvi- ously hugely positive news for the UK's domestic recycling industry. Following updated PRN/PERN regulations earlier this year, we at Closed Loop Recycling expressed concerns that the EA wouldn't have the budget or resources to do the number of inspections required to police the waste exports system – to the detriment of UK recyclers who are in need of more materials to process. However, this new data is evidence of the EA's new tougher approach to illegal waste shipments, with more than a quarter of containers being returned to waste sites for reprocess- ing or detained for investigation. If we are to continue to support the growth of the UK recycling industry, we believe there is still more that can be done to ensure enough pre- cious resources are reprocessed here in Britain to be supplied to British retailers. What is needed are even more inspections by the EA alongside a specific focus on the enforcement of the legal requirement that green list materials are consigned to a 'broadly equivalent' facility in the receiving country – with exporters having to provide practical evidence of where their waste containers end up and the 'recycling' process they are then sub- ject to. It should be a criminal offence if this documentation, perhaps in the form of independent written verifica- tion and photographs, is fraudulent or not forthcoming. Only by producing this informa- tion can the EA confirm that export- ers are actually using broadly equiva- lent processes to the UK in overseas markets. In turn, this would provide a practical solution to the scarcity of resource issue experienced in the UK, and provide much needed confidence in our domestic recycling industry that would drive investment, infra- structure growth and jobs going for- ward. Annex VII (7) Another significant announcement from the Environment Agency this summer was the news that it is ask- ing exporters to ensure they complete Annex 7 of their waste shipment doc- umentation, which outlines where waste is going and how it is being processed in overseas markets. This supports the Resource Association's own Destination Charter to which several councils have already signed up. Recent research shows that resi- dents will be more committed to recycling if they know what happens to their material after it leaves the kerbside – and that it isn't being landfilled in India or hand sorted by children in Vietnam for example. Annex 7 is all part of understand- ing whether waste shipments are sub- ject to 'broadly equivalent' processes as they are in the UK. However, we understand that some exporters are concerned about reveal- ing what many believe to be commer- cially sensitive information to their competitors. What we would like to propose therefore is that the EA adopt a digi- tal reporting system whereby export- ers disclose this information to the EA but it does not become publically available, and therefore not subject to freedom of information requests. This would enable exporters to sat- isfy the requirements of the EA and for the EA to closely monitor com- pliance. WRAP report More positive news for the indus- try this year came from WRAP's report entitled 'Approaches to the marketing of dry recyclables by local authorities', which highlighted that local authorities need to be more accountable for where their collected waste ends up. We believe this pro- vides them with a big opportunity to " What we need going forward is political will " 6 Local Authority Waste & Recycling November 2014 R Recent developments could Resource management stakeholders may have failed to take notice of several important announcements busy summer or returned from their holidays only to attend RWM and blinked. Here, Chris Dow argues

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