Packaging Council Claims Good Recycling Result

What would it take for the Greens and the Government to say that a 20% increase in recycling in one year is a good result?

The Packaging Council questions why the joint statement from the Greens and Government about the renaming and amendments to the Waste Bill makes producers the scapegoats for waste.

Paul Curtis, Executive Director of the Packaging Council said that he was baffled why neither party mentioned the huge increase in recycling which is now at 57% across all packaging materials consistent with the recycling rates in the much larger and more regulated markets of the UK, Australia and Europe.

"Just last month the Acting Minister for the Environment presented environmental packaging awards to small, medium and large organisations all showing the major improvements that have been made in the environmental design and resource recovery of packaging. Producers have made major investments in this area and recycling rates across every sector have improved dramatically in the three years since the voluntary Packaging Accord was signed. It is disappointing that none of this is reflected in their observations today."

"We recently completed our annual recycling analysis and reported that 417,000 tonnes of packaging was recycled last year - a massive 67,500 tonnes more than the year before. To put this in perspective, this increase equates to an annual saving of around 33,000 tonnes of CO2 or taking around 8,000 cars off the road."

"None of the amendments made are a surprise because the Bill in its original form was unworkable and we welcome the certainty that a Government backed Bill will provide particularly because it will now get the rigour of a cost benefit analysis. The waste levy component was expected, although we remain sceptical that it would be an effective mechanism to drive behaviour change and are concerned this tax would increase the cost of recycling and could be a demotivating factor for business to go the extra mile. We are pleased however to see that the emotional pull of container deposit legislation has been reined in by common sense."

Packaging Council members manufacture over 75% of New Zealand's top 100 food and grocery brands contributing over NZ$17 billion to the local economy.

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