Paper and Aluminium industries have hit back at reports that they import high quality materials in place of inadequate UK materials

UK Aluminium and paper industries have spoken out against the Waste & Resources Action Programme's suggestion that high quality recovered materials are being imported to make up for inadequate UK materials. WRAP’s recent report Choosing the right recycling collection system states: “In key areas e.g. paper, aluminium and certain types of glass, UK reprocessors are importing materials because sufficient material of the required quality is not available on the UK markets.” A paper industry insider strongly disagreed. He said: “We are producing a high enough quality of materials in the UK for our paper mills. Those people not producing a good standard wouldn’t be able to shift the material. It is true that household waste can be easily contaminated but it’s not a major issue, and it doesn’t reflect the overall performance of the industry. Materials recycling facilities have been improved hugely over recent years, raising the quality of material output.” Confederation of Paper Industries recovered paper sector manager Peter Seggie said: “There are no signs of significant increases in recovered paper being imported into the UK in the H M Revenue and Customs data that CPI compile. Indeed there was a fall in 2008 compared to 2007 - 88,000 tonnes against 72,000 tonnes respectively.” Novelis Recycling - which claims to own the biggest aluminium facility in Europe with a capacity of 90,000 tonnes – imports aluminium because of a lack of recovered material and not due to low quality in the UK. National manager Andy Doran said: “The UK recycles just 50 per cent of its cans and we don’t take all of them, so we have to import from Europe in order to meet the commercial demand and the site’s capacity. “However, as a closed loop process, we need a high quality of aluminium and due to the different collecting methods of local authorities there is a definite quality variation.” Avoiding the point about reprocessors importing materials, WRAP director of local government services Phillip Ward defended the statement. He said: "Anecdotal reports suggest reprocessors send some of the material provided by MRFs to landfill. There are no systematic figures collected but this represents a small part of the total. In saying that 95 per cent of material is recycled, we have already made allowances for this." source:www.mrw.co.uk