Local authorities need to make positive moves to encourage recycling rather than piling extra cost onto businesses, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has said.
The call for improved access to services comes in the wake of the Local Government Association’s (LGA) packaging survey published today. The survey, which covered a limited number of products and UK retailers, found that retailers have restricted progress in reducing packaging since last autumn.
The LGA survey found that 38% of packaging in supermarkets cannot be recycled, down just 2% since last October. The research also showed that 5% of the weight of grocery shopping is made up of packaging.
By far the worst offenders were shown to be the supermarket behemoths, with Marks & Spencer topping the list. The best performers were local markets, where 76% of packaging was recyclable. Next best were local shops, with 74% recyclable packaging.
Despite the somewhat negative findings of the survey, the BRC claimed it was local authorities’ responsibility to encourage recycling “rather than looking for new ways to tap retailers”.
The BRC claims retailers already give local authorities £10m to upgrade sites for collecting waste electrical equipment and they pay £4.5bn a year in business rates towards local authority funding.
“Local authorities would make a more positive contribution by developing their recycling facilities and increasing and standardising the range of materials they will accept for recycling,” said Stephen Robertson, BRC director general.
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