On Wednesday 17th September the Glass Packaging Forum had its Annual
General Meeting at Waipuna Conference Centre in Mt Wellington, Auckland.
23 people were in attendance.
This meeting was the last for Les Evans a founding member of the Forum’s Steering Committee and the meeting thanked him for his contribution and wished him an enjoyable retirement.
David Carter, the Chairman in welcoming the guests, commented on the successful 62% recovery rate for glass over the last year and thanked the Steering Committee Members for their contributions.
John Webber, the General Manager reported on the last year’s activities and those issues he felt would be of importance over the coming twelve months.
The highlights of the afternoon were an address by Tony Nowell, Chairman of the According Governing Board and a DVD presentation documenting the School’s Rap Competition with Che Fu.
Thank you for inviting me to join you this evening at the Glass Packaging Forum's AGM. I have been asked to provide a perspective on the Packaging Accord which industry signed with government in 2004; to chart its four year progress and perhaps most importantly to look forward to the challenges which lie ahead in terms of a subsequent Accord and the impact of the Waste Bill which finally passed into law last week.
The Packaging Accord which we are currently signed up to is actually the 2nd agreement around packaging. The first Accord was an agreement between packaging manufacturers and government signed in 1996 but it did not include brand owners and retailers. To be effective it was recognized that those who make and sell consumer goods need to be part of the solution for effective product stewardship.
On the 10th August 2004 I signed this current Packaging Accord on behalf of the Brand Owners and Retailers sector joining then Minister for the Environment Marion Hobbs, the President of Local Government NZ Basil Morrison and representatives from each of the packaging materials sectors and the recycling operators.
It was certainly not plain sailing. Right up to the day of signing, there was opposition from some councils and environmental groups that a voluntary accord had no teeth; the targets were too light and that legislation was required. This is still a familiar argument today.
In fact the Packaging Accord is unique because unlike other voluntary agreements it is predicated on partnership between all sectors of industry and local and central government. This collaboration has been a major point of difference to overseas models and is crucial to success.
Almost immediately the glass sector was faced with a serious challenge to the Accord from changes in the market for glass cullet. The subsequent reduction in the rate paid to recycling operators for glass recovery put the onus on industry to find a workable solution which would enable kerbside collection to continue. I can assure you that the way in which industry responded was a defining moment for this Accord. But we can be under no illusion that if the newly emerging glass sector had not agreed to a voluntary levy at this time, the government would have responded with legislation.
Some might argue that we have ended up with legislation anyway with the passing of the Waste Bill. But the Accord was always a 5 year finite agreement albeit with the expectation on our part that if we met or exceeded targets, then legislation would be less likely. What I can say is that the voluntary levy payable by the glass industry is acknowledged by Government as an exemplar of voluntary product stewardship working.
The Glass Forum is to be congratulated on turning adversity into opportunity. To have achieved a 62% recovery rate particularly with the challenges posed by commingled collections is an outstanding success. The investment in research and development, operational solutions and education is clearly paying off.
Is it enough and what next?
Last year the Governing Board of the Packaging Accord spent time on a strategic review of the Accord identifying what would be needed to reach the overarching vision of zero waste.
We need to face up to facts. There is public concern about over packaging and packaging waste as was indicated in surveys by the Business Council for Sustainable Development recently. Their ShapeNZ nationwide poll shows 74% public support for a waste levy. It also found that New Zealanders see agrichemicals, batteries, oil, tyres and computers as the biggest waste problems and want ways to clean up their act. The next priority wastes are "dead" vehicles, TVs, paint, packaging, mobile phones, disposable nappies and then other electrical products.
They are also very concerned about everyday products and packaging made from petroleum based plastics.
It was perhaps not surprising therefore to find wide cross party support for the Waste Bill. And as Benjamin Franklin once said: "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." Last week the Waste Bill made its final passage through Parliament after almost two years of deliberation. There will be a waste levy which will initially be set at $10 per tonne of waste material to landfill. This is additional to any existing charges payable.
The product stewardship part of the Waste Bill is less easy to predict. The same survey by the Business Council found that New Zealanders were now increasingly saying they would buy a product in a stewardship programme over one which wasn't.
There does not however appear to be any differentiation in consumers' minds between product stewardship schemes which are voluntary such as the Packaging Accord or the Glass levy and proposed mandatory schemes -as long as they are working and all inclusive.
And unequivocally the Packaging Accord is working. Earlier this week the Packaging Council announced the recovery rates for all packaging types. They tell an excellent story.
Overall we are recycling 60% of the packaging consumed and we have now met or surpassed the individual recycling targets for paper, glass, aluminium, plastic and steel. Four years into the Packaging Accord, the numbers show that recycling is becoming a way of life whether at home or at work. It also shows that voluntary targets are effective and efficient ways of getting results. New Zealand is achieving on a voluntary basis what many nations are struggling with under an expensive legislative framework.
However the jury is still out on whether this will be enough to remove packaging or indeed any of the individual materials from the potential list of priority products. How products are determined to be priority will be part of a long consultative process and given the Waste Bill has taken almost two years, it is anybody's guess how long the next phase will take.
So it simply isn't clear whether packaging will be deemed a priority product. But it's worth remembering that in the Business Council poll packaging is listed ninth as a product of concern.
However thanks to lobbying by the Glass Packaging Forum and the Packaging Council as well as other industry groups, public concern has been removed as a criterion for declaring a product to be a priority product.
The decision to allocate a product priority status will need to be based on environmental, social and economic benefits of introducing a scheme outweighing their costs. In addition the effectiveness of voluntary product stewardship scheme has to be taken into account before declaring a product to be a priority product.
The Minister will then have to consult with stakeholders and those directly affected before declaring a product to be a priority product.
For glass and other drinks containers there is another fish hook in that even non-priority products could still be regulated (e.g. take-back services, refundable deposits, etc.), although the Minister would have to be satisfied that the total benefits from regulation exceeded the total costs.
Again based on cost benefit analysis conducted for the packaged goods industry, this should be a no-brainer. The cost of introducing container deposit legislation for beverage containers would incur an additional cost for New Zealanders of up to $90 million and in terms of making a difference it would mean that instead of achieving a 60% recovery rate as we have just reported, it would have been 66%.
Under any reasonable analysis it would be hard to see how that could be deemed an economic or environmental benefit but there is still a popular voice calling for mandatory refund systems.
So if you ask me to star gaze tonight and tell you whether packaging, glass, plastic bags or any other product might be deemed priority I will simply remind you of a particularly apt quote for this forum:-
"He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass."
What we can however do as an industry is recognize that there will be change.
The Ministry for the Environment has been an important part of the existing Accord represented on the Governing Board and providing part funding for the secretariat function. Under the new Bill, the Ministry will be playing a different role involved as a gate keeper.
Local Government NZ is communicating with its own membership about its potential future role in an Accord. Whilst LGNZ is the overarching organization for local councils it cannot speak for individual councils and regions. There are 85 councils each with different views on what can be recycled and how; who should pay and how costs are allocated.
We can see all of this as a threat or we can accept it as an opportunity and be masters of our own destiny.
The packaged goods industry must collaborate and work even closer than it has over the past four years. Under this current Accord, those who make packaging, select it for their products or buy it to sell in their stores have recognized that they have a responsibility for choice of packaging. New Zealanders are not generally speaking good listeners but it's only by listening to other sector's issues that we will make the next step change.
When brand owners change packaging from a recyclable container to a composite which can no longer be recycled in this country - for what may be excellent economic reasons and which may make great sense in terms of reducing overall energy consumption and green house gas emissions - the recycling industry along with local and central government feel that we have failed to deliver on our part of the Packaging Accord deal. The packaged goods industry signed up to make more packaging recyclable so making changes to packaging which render it less recyclable challenge our integrity.
The issues facing the packaging industry are a microcosm of those facing NZ economy as a whole:-
· We need critical mass to compete globally. Instead as often bit players on the world stage we are the recipients of other countries choices about packaging. To respond we also need commercial capability to commercialise new recycling markets here.
· We are starting to see the signs of manufacturers moving off shore which will reduce our domestic packaging production and see an increase in packaging imports. We need to manage the environmental quality of the imported product and its packaging and ensure its recyclability in our market.
· Consumption has slowed down - over the past three years packaging consumption has increased by just 1.3% whilst the amount of materials recycled as increased by 14.5% over the same period.
It is important that we have a clear road map otherwise industry will be buffeted by political whim.
We have a code of practice and we must not be afraid to use it to challenge companies that pose a threat to our voluntary position.
Whilst 85% brand owners are part of the Packaging Accord, we still only have three retailers hence we will continue to be challenged about what we are doing to address free-riders.
As part of the Governing Board's strategic review which I referred to earlier, we discussed targeting the top ten producers; the top ten retailers and the top ten councils to bring them all into the process. The criteria for selection could be size in terms of sales, people, environmental footprint or a combination of all of these.
By bringing together these large scale representatives from the private and public sector, we would build on the collaboration process which has already started.
I am sure that many of you here tonight will have your own thoughts on how we can make another step change in our packaging product stewardship performance. There will be an opportunity to do this at a seminar being held next month at Food Tech Pack Tech by the Packaging Council.
We can do this ourselves or we can wait for the government's legislative whip - and whether it's a Labour or National led government after November 8th, there is unlikely to be any significant change to attitudes to waste minimization.
As joint signatories to the Packaging Accord, each sector committed to advocate, innovate and educate. I congratulate you on a job well done and look forward to working with you to close out this Accord and negotiate the next set of commitments.
This will not be easy. As I have said it is likely that the Ministry for the Environment and Local Government will play a different role in any future agreement and will no longer sit on the Governing Board. I am sure they will still be involved but I believe they will be supportive rather than an integral part of the team. This puts the onus on us as industry to collaborate across sectors and the value chain. Packaging manufacturers, brand owners, retailers and recycling operators must work together to deliver against new and much more rigorous targets.
Just as stretch targets are set for us in our own companies, the Waste Minimisation Act will expect us to set and agree tougher recycling targets. So what might this entail?
Firstly government will be looking towards the highest recovery rates in the world and challenge us to do as well.
Secondly expect greater challenges on packaging which is not recyclable in New Zealand - either to create recycling markets or to change the packaging.
Thirdly brand owners should think about taking responsibility for arranging recycling their packaging if they sponsor events and:-
Finally there is increasing scrutiny on recycling statistics. Third party independent verification of the mass balance data is likely to be a part of any future Accord.
As I said it will be challenging and requires us now to raise our game to another level but we either do this ourselves or we let others drive the agenda -and I know which option I prefer.
Thank you
Matua Valley Wines and Fosters New Zealand (Matua) are running a mobile phone recycling drive in association with Vodafone.
The phones are recycled to less fortunate nations through the Enable Community and what cannot be re-used whole is broken down to its components and as many as possible of those are re-used.
Matua Valley Wines have a bin outside their Cellar Door for ANY brand of mobile phone you might want to spring clean out of your closet. They invite you to bring your old mobile to their winery at Waimauku and to sample their wines while you are there in the fresh country air (and hopefully sunshine).
The Hunting Lodge restaurant is just across the lawn too by the way (bookings essential).
In order to assist in facilitating local councils to crush glass at a reasonable cost, the Forum has purchased a mobile crusher which will be operated in conjunction with Silaca Crushers Ltd and which can be hired by making an application.
The Hon. David Parker, Minister for the Environment officially launched the Glass Packaging Forum's Mobile Crusher at Parliament on the 9th October. This was preceded by a brief function supported by 6 Politicians, Mayor of Porirua, Jenny Brash and a further 40 invited guests.
After formal speeches from the Minister, Nandor Tanczos for the Green party, David Carter- Chairman for the Forum and Donald Nelson representing Lion Nathan (sponsor), children from Thorndon Primary School joined the party to watch the Minister officially christen the machine. The party was able to inspect the material produced by the machine in a range of particle sizes 9.5mm to 19mm and the Children were able to view the crusher for which a 'Naming Competition' was announced. All schools of New Zealand incorporating Years 1 - 8 will be invited to present possible names as suggested by the pupils and the successful school will receive a prize of $1000.00 to support a specific school activity.
The crusher itself will be travelling initially through the South Island processing those stockpiles of glass requiring crushing.
National Party MP acknowledges Glass CrusherJohn Webber interview on Radio New Zealand
Facts about the Glass Crusher [800KB]
 Truck and Crusher |
 Hon. David Parker expressing his support glass crushing programme. |
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 Nandor Tanczos - Green Party Environmental spokesperson giving his assessment of the Forums initiative. |
 David Carter, Chairman of the Glass Packaging Forum outlines the Forum's establishment of the Glass Crushing programme. |
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 Donald Nelson (Lion Nathan - Sponsor of the crusher), David Parker (Minister for the Environment) and David Carter (Chairman of Glass Packaging Forum) discuss samples of the glass processed by the new crusher. |
 Nick Smith National Party spokesman for the Environment has his questions answered by Glass Packaging Forum's General Manager John Webber |
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 Donald Nelson representing Lion Nathan explains the crushing and glass making processes to the Thorndon School Children. |
 The Winner of our Award was Palmerston North City Council for the 5% Crushed Glass Aggregate Project. Chris Pepper of the Palmerston North City Council received the award, David Carter our Chairman presented the Award and the Honourable David Parker Acting Minister for the Environment presented also. |
 Highly Commended was presented to Terranova of Christchurch for developing alternative solutions for recycling glass. David Carter presented the award to Julie McCloy. |
 Commended was presented to the Waste Resource Trust of Waiheke Island for their Waste Glass Utilisation Strategy . The award was presented by David Carter to Bill Whall. |
