More Recycling Targets Broken

Tuesday, 08 April 2008 02:36

“There has been little to no progress under the Covenant” said Jeff Angel, Director of Total Environment Centre and community representative on the NPC.

“A primary target of the National Packaging Covenant is ‘no new packaging to landfill’ so that consumption and population growth did not make the packaging waste problem worse.  However, this has already been exceeded. Unless immediate action is taken, by 2010 we estimate the amount of packaging rubbish that is littered or landfilled will be well over 2.3million tonnes per annum – several hundred thousand tonnes more than allowed.”

Taken together with wrongly reported recycling figures, the NPC is now in crisis. When the Covenant Council produced its draft 2005-06 annual report we told them the figures were inflated but were ignored; our assertions have now been shown to be true. How can governments allow this sort of exaggeration to be printed under their name?” asked Angel.

“The NPC Annual Report was published citing national recycling rates for packaging as 56%. The review showed that at best recycling rates were 47.1% and the author of the original report Mr Russ Martin of MS2 (and Hyder Consulting) in response inflated the figure for 2006 to 58%.  He also concedes that if figures for newsprint and office paper are removed, in reality the rates are even worse with an appalling 43%. The ‘errors’ are unacceptable,” said Dave West, National Campaign Director for the Boomerang Alliance.

“This has been a feature of NPC reporting ever since it has used Martin’s data.  During negotiations to renew the controversial NPC in 2005 Martin’s data consistently overstated recycling rates using industry figures to exaggerate the sector’s recycling performance.”

Green groups today called for Martin and MS2 to be sacked from its current role as assessors of Australian packaging recycling rates.

“MS2 needs to be replaced; its principal Russ Martin places far too much faith in industry’s claims to be seen as independent. These reports are used to assess whether government should regulate industry. Letting packaging companies decide what our recycling rates are is like letting criminals sit on a parole board’ said West.

The Boomerang Alliance renewed its calls for national and state environment ministers to introduce a National Container Deposit System whereby consumers receive an incentive to recycle.  The ministers meet in Melbourne on 17 April to discuss the future of the Covenant.