PACKAGING COVENANT FIGURES WRONG

05.11.08 The National Packaging Covenant (NPC) should be terminated or radically changed when all federal and state environment ministers meet this week to decide its fate, Total Environment Centre said today.

“Despite improved data collection by the NPC we’ve discovered a half a million tonne black hole of packaging that has been ignored.  This has led to exaggerated claims about recycling.  Items like liquid paperboard containers for milk and fruit juice have been missed and the NPC has no figures on glass and plastic packaging on imported goods such as cooking oils, cosmetics, electronics and beverages,” said Jeff Angel, Director of the Centre, who is also the community representative on the Covenant Council. 

“We estimate the recycling rate at under 50%, way off the 2010 target of 65% and packaging to landfill is increasing.  Our research has used the best available data and confidence ratings.”

“It’s also clear that while packaging recycling has improved in the last eight years, this is more due to export demand and action by local councils at kerbside, than the NPC. It’s difficult to link the NPC to a substantial increase in recycling and there are serious questions about contributions from projects it has funded.”

“This means we have to reassess the future of the NPC which has limited funds and staff so that it can focus on areas where it can make a difference.”

“The Ministers should clear the air about packaging policies.  The NPC is not the panacea for the problems of packaging waste and we need a national packaging strategy that can attack the product supply chain, recovery and recycling of waste and consumer behaviour. New regulatory and economic instruments to reduce packaging to landfill should be considered.”

“This is also an important climate change policy because packaging dumped into landfill causes greenhouse gas emissions.  Each year about 1 million tonnes of C02 is added to greenhouse pollution.”

Link to new reports: Recycling Data and Performance & Lessons for the Future