National Recycling Guidelines Praised by Recycling Association

The publication of WRAP’s first National Recycling Guidelines have been well received by Chief Executive of The Recycling Association, Simon Ellin.

The Association has worked with WRAP on the development of the Guidelines and hopes the national approach will be widely adopted and ‘transformational’ in terms of post-consumer recycling quality.

Commenting on the launch of the Guidelines, Simon Ellin said:

“We are delighted that the consistency approach has been well received. It dovetails with our own Quality First campaign, launched last month, in which we highlighted the need for the full recycling supply chain to take responsibility for material quality.

“Householders and local authorities are the first part of the recycling supply chain. What they do and achieve is instrumental on household recycling quality.”

These Guidelines make everything that much easier. They provide clarity, and, if widely adopted, will put an end to household confusion.

“They make it easier for local authorities to take the next step, driving quality improvements at the collection stage. They will also facilitate improvements further along the supply chain as we will all be working with common materials and common practices – as well as common goals.”

Simon Ellin commented that The Recycling Association members were in favour of WRAP’s consistency programme as it will “help local authorities to produce the right mix of material for reprocessors. The responsibility to maximise quality will then pass to recyclers, and then on to traders and the logistics sector.”

This collective responsibility for quality is important as the global market for recovered materials is changing.

“The market is maturing,” Simon Ellin continued. “There is a much greater emphasis on quality, with sub-standard quality material being rejected and either used for energy production, or even land filled.”

“The UK needs to raise the standard of recycled material to maintain its global markets. These new guidelines are helping us move in the right direction.”

“We’re also pleased to see so many recycling organisations working together to push for a new way of doing things. That is refreshing. If we can harness this joint approach we can improve recycling performance significantly.

“This is a big step forward at the front end of the supply chain. It has the potential to be a game changer and we support it 100%,” he concluded.