The new partnership will study the flow of paper and card packaging from the amount placed on the market and the level recycled, recovered or sent to landfill from 2014-2020.

WRAP and Valpak will conduct the research on behalf of Defra, in order to provide the Government office with an estimate on the level of paper and card packaging and help implement a strategy to fulfil EU requirements for recycling performance.

The research follows collaborative projects on the market flow of glass metal and plastic packaging.

Commenting on the new partnership, Confederation of Paper Industries director of raw materials Simon Weston said: “The paper industry has for a long time been a leading material in recycling and this work will provide valuable insight not only into the amount of material in the UK but also help identify where improvements can be made.”

Defra update

The new partnership comes in the same week Defra announced provisional waste statistics for the last quarter of 2014.

According to the figure of waste managed by local authorities, the total waste generated over the 12 months to December 2014 increased 3.7% compared to 2013.

The Defra statistics showed the waste from households recycling rate was up to 44.8% in 2014, a mere 0.6% increase on 2013. Local authorities, however, managed to decrease waste-to-landfill by 14.8% during 2014, but waste sent to incinerators and energy from waste plants increase by 31.7%.

Separately collected foodwaste led an increase in recycling waste, with separate food waste collection increasing 7% between 2013-14.

Recent statistics from WRAP showed local authorities with food waste collections had significantly higher recycling rates than those without them.

A total of 1.4 million tonnes of dry recycling came from households in the last quarter of 2014. Of this 42% was paper and card and waste electrical and electronic equipment made up almost 8%.

Matt Field

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