Steel packaging recycling rate accelerates on sustainability demand

For confectionery packaging, there are all manner of spokes to the sustainability wheel, but essentially they all revolve around the notion of cutting the environmental impact of packaging and include source reduction, recovery and recycling.

In the UK, Corus Steel Packaging Recycling (CSPR), a subdivision of Tata-owned Corus, is active, for example, in driving-up the recycling rate for steel packaging. The firm asserts that in 2007, the business recycling rate for steel hit 69 per cent, an increase of 12 per cent over 2006.

The steel giant claims that it has surpassed the 2007 UK steel packaging recycling target, achieving over 56 per cent against a target of 53 per cent, and making it well placed to meet or exceed the EU metals target of 50 per cent recycling by 2008.

“​With the UK​’​s steel packaging recycling rate having already surpassed the European packaging recycling target of 54% two years early, the challenge now is to continue this momentum through to 2010 and beyond,"​ said David Williams, a manager at CSPR.

Steel, according to the firm, is 100 per cent recyclable, can be recycled over and over without loss of quality, is easy to collect, and is now the most recycled packaging material in Europe.

PRNs​

Corus, which belongs to India's steel behemoth Tata, is the UK’s largest issuer of steel Packaging Recovery Notes (PRNs). A Packaging Recovery Note essentially provides evidence that the waste reprocessor has turned waste packaging back into a new product. Bought by packaging chain companies, and including suppliers to the confectionery industry, the PRNs prove legal responsibility to recover and recycle has been fulfilled.

PRNs slot into the European Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste that sets recovery and recycling targets for all packaging materials and covers all types of packaging – including steel, aluminium, paper, plastic, glass and wood.

Transposing the EU directive into UK law, the government formed the 'Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997', which kicked off on 1 January 1998. The regulations, according to Corus, apply to any UK business which manufactures, fills or sells packaging or packaging materials in excess of 50 tonnes per year and has an annual turnover in excess of £2 million.

"The regulations require each obligated company to have a specific, quantified recovery target dependent upon the weight of material handled and its ‘activity​’​ in the supply chain,"​ wrotes Corus.

Responsibility for achievement of targets is spread across four activities: selling packaged goods, filling packaging, making packaging, and making raw materials for packaging.

Facts and figures​

According to a report from Corus released in September, steel packaging recycling hit an all time high of 404,500 tonnes, surpassing 2007 business targets by 27% and giving a surplus over the national target of over 40 kilotonnes (kt).

"By investing PRN funds, Corus has improved the flow of material into its steel making plants, increasing the potential intake of collected steel packaging from 175kt to 250kt in 2007,"​ reports the firm.