HM Revenue & Customs’ consultation on chemical recycling of plastic and the Mass Balance Approach was one of the hot topics discussed at a packaging conference organised by Incpen in London last week.
Entitled ‘Mobilising together on the Government’s plans for plastics’, the conference provided the opportunity to hear from Mark Palmer at HMRC about the objectives of the consultation, which explores various mass balance approaches and models, and the use of certification schemes to track recycled content through the plastics value chain for the purposes of the UK Plastic Packaging Tax. As well as encouraging the plastics industry to respond, Mark also emphasised the need for good evidence to support responses on key points including investment potential, Life Cycle Analysis and feedstock assessments.
Delegates also heard from Defra, with Linda Crichton confirming that the department hopes to publish the Government’s response to the Consistent Collection ‘soon’, providing some of the policy certainty that the packaging value chain has been calling for.
The programme then moved to a wider discussion about performance and progress on plastics, with a packed line-up of speakers including Stuart Foster from RECOUP on the importance of data and reporting to accurately gauge progress, Nick Cliffe from Innovate UK’s Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge on the exciting plastics innovation landscape, and John Case of Dow on creating industry confidence in chemical recycling.
A full recording of the conference is available on YouTube.
