Waste Paper (Hansard, 7 December 1993)

§ Mr. McLoughlin

[holding answer 3 December 1993]: The Government are keenly aware of the problems being experienced by the United Kingdom waste paper industry as a result of the German packaging ordinance and the DSD collection scheme. We have raised our concerns bilaterally with the German Government, and at EC level. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, has also written to EC Commissioners, encouraging them to come to an early conclusion on their consideration of the German system's compatibility with EC law.

My hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and Countryside, recently attended a meeting of EC Environment Ministers, called by the German Minister, to discuss the effects of trade flows of secondary raw materials, including paper. The German Government referred there to the expectation that some 800,000 tonnes of waste paper recycling capacity would come on stream in Germany by the end of 1994; they have suggested that the quantity of waste paper exported for recycling will diminish substantially as a consequence. In [...]ur view, however, this does not address the fundamental cause of the problem, which is the statutory requirement in Germany to recover and recycle far more waste material than there is demand for.

The announcement on producer responsibility which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment and I made in July was intended partly as a response to the difficulties caused by over-collection of some materials under the German DSD scheme. It is intended to provide that United Kingdom collectors and reprocessors are put on a similar basis to their competitors in Germany, and in other EC countries.

For the longer term, we believe that distortions of the kind currently being experienced are,[...]best dealt with by setting an overall framework through Community-wide legislation, such as the proposed EC Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive.