ESA Calls for Chancellor to Tackle Irresponsible Packaging

The Environmental Services Association (ESA), the voice for the UK’s resource and waste management industry, today has urged the Treasury to help create the right policy environment that will attract much-needed investment into the waste and recycling industry.

Without intervention to drive up recycling rates, the UK will be left with a shortfall of up to six million tonnes of waste without a home by 2030. Even with municipal recycling rates 15% higher than today, there remains a risk that we will not have the treatment facilities we need for the waste generated by our homes and businesses.

ESA is calling on HM Treasury to work with Defra to help boost UK recycling. We believe that stronger measures to address irresponsibly designed packaging and to encourage the use of recycled material by UK manufacturers would generate the green jobs and growth we need. Areas such as Green Public Procurement, lower VAT for recycled content, and eco-design rules should all be part of a suite of measures to help improve the quantity and quality of recycling. Furthermore, long-term certainty of Landfill Tax and continued funding to tackle waste crime are essential to creating a stable investment climate.

ESA’s Executive Director, Jacob Hayler, said: “The Chancellor has an opportunity in Wednesday’s Budget to help boost the UK’s resource productivity. Too many of our resources are wasted and we need much stronger action to improve packaging design and encourage the use of recycled materials in products.

Our industry has made huge strides in raising recycling and putting our discarded resources back into productive use. But without intervention, we are worried that decades of progress in managing our resources will begin to reverse. However, with the right policy support, we can extract value from waste to safeguard our natural capital, boost resource productivity, and create thousands of jobs around the country.”