De-registered compliance scheme Cleanapack has said it is talking to four other schemes about the possibility of taking on its members' producer responsibility obligations for packaging waste.

Members of the Cleanaway-owned scheme could transfer to other compliance schemes if Cleanapack's appeal against the Environment Agency's deregistration fails.

The Agency has refused to register Cleanapack as an accredited packaging waste compliance scheme for 2005, even though four months of the compliance year have already passed. The Agency's decision to refuse registration resulted from problems with Cleanapack's application.

Cleanapack's 125 members – which include high profile companies such as Hugo Boss, Revlon, Samsung, Toyota and The Body Shop – have been told by the Agency that they have 28 days to find another compliance scheme or handle their obligations themselves, registering direct with the Agency.

But, some schemes have expressed initial reluctance concerning the taking on of Cleanapack's members, because of the difficulty of obtaining sufficient PRNs to meet the additional members' full obligations.

With the difficulty in buying PRNs for materials like aluminium, steel and plastic packaging waste, experts suggest that if companies ultimately have to undertake their own individual PRN buying, they could find life extremely difficult.

Hopeful

Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Cleanapack compliance manager Andy Hanratty said that he had held meetings with the Environment Agency and was hopeful for a successful appeal. In the mean time, he said he was working on a contingency plan in the event of the appeal failing.

Mr Hanratty said: "We have talked to four compliance schemes so far – our members' compliance is at the top of our thoughts at this time. We are working for 125 well-intentioned companies to ensure their continued compliance."

Agency

Environment Agency's Chris Grove told letsrecycle.com that Cleanapack's members would still have to meet their full 2005 obligations under the packaging regulations, despite being told of their scheme's deregistration more than four months into the year. Any PRNs already bought by Cleanapack could be transferred to other compliance schemes or obligated companies, but would have to be re-issued by the original reprocessors that issued them, Mr Grove explained.

Registration fees would need to be received by the Agency for any company choosing to register individually with the Agency, Mr Grove said, and whether fees had already been paid by obligated companies would be a matter for Cleanapack, he added.

As well as problems with its 2005 registration, Cleanapack is one of four English-based packaging compliance schemes still to have their 2004 compliance activities assessed by the Agency .

Mr Grove said this assessment was still to take place, but that the Agency had no clear idea when a decision might be made.
 

Source: letsrecycle.com