The British Retail Consortium has launched a report entitled A Better Retailing Climate: Towards Sustainable Retail, also announcing that it is supporting ambitious packaging recycling targets proposed by Defra.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has announced that it is supporting ambitious packaging recycling targets proposed by Defra.
BRC launched its report entitled A Better Retailing Climate: Towards Sustainable Retail on 31 January.
In the report, the organization said that it supports stretching packaging recycling targets, as these promote the development and investment in improvements to UK recycling infrastructure.
It also said: “Steadily increasing targets over time provides long-term certainty to business, facilitating investment”.
In December 2011, Defra announced proposals for stricter packaging recycling targets from 2013-2017 aiming to stop recyclable materials going to landfill, which will almost double target recycling rate for plastics by 2017.
Defra’s consultation closes Friday 10 February 2012.
BRC head of environment Bob Gordon said: “We want to see greater recycling as a sector and we have done a lot of work to lightweight packaging and a lot of work has been done to increase the recycling of packaging.
“Higher targets will drive greater consistency and bring about greater quality.”
Gordon also said that availability of high quality packaging and consistency would increase if ambitious targets were introduced.
He said that local authorities should be more consistent in what they collect and should provide collection for materials such as paper, card, glass and plastics.
The BRC report also reiterates that signatories to Courtauld Commitment Phase 2, who reported a 5.1% reduction in the first year and need to reach a 10% target by the end of this year, are half way to achieving their packaging reduction target.
The BRC also said that retailers have been working with Wrap to improve recyclability of a range of packaging formats at the design stage, including changes in glue, labels and ink.