Recycling Industry believes poor material quality is its biggest threat

12.04.2017

A survey of UK recycling industry experts has revealed that 59 per cent of respondents considered poor material quality to represent the biggest threat to the sector.

34 per cent of respondents said that legislative ambiguity represented the biggest threat to maintaining current recycling activities.

By contrast just two per cent were worried about global competition and even fewer considered illegal trading to be a threat.

The Recycling Association questioned delegates at its Quality First Recycling Conference, held on April 5th in London. More than 100 delegates, from all areas of the recycling supply chain, were asked what posed the biggest threat to the UK’s recycling industry. Poor material quality was the first choice for more than half of respondents.

Simon Ellin, CEO of The Recycling Association, said: “The UK’s recycling sector faces many challenges just to maintain the status quo, but frequently the emphasis is placed on global competition and how that impacts the market. The fact is that if we produce poor quality material, global competition is insignificant. Unless our quality is a match for that produced elsewhere, we might just as well shut up shop.

“Quality has been talked about for decades now – but little has changed. I’m glad that most of our delegates recognise the seriousness of the situation. We now need to take that understanding and effect change, which was what the whole conference was about.”

The Quality First Recycling Conference focused on four key areas where there is an opportunity to make changes that will improve quality and ensure the UK remains globally competitive. It highlighted the need for a full supply chain approach whereby local authorities, recycling and waste management companies, products designers and brands, retailers, exporters and material purchasers work together rather than in silos, taking responsibility for their collective impacts on material quality.

Adrian Jackson, Chair of The Recycling Association, said: “This conference is one of the first milestones on our journey to kick start change. The presentations were meant to fuel debate and unearth opinions that will inspire new behaviours.

“There were many divergent opinions and suggestions and under this campaign we will now assess those and develop a strategy to see where we can drive changes most effectively.”

The Recycling Association’s Quality First committee will now meet and prepare a full report on how it proposes the UK recycling supply chain should tackle quality. The report will be published in July 2017.