Packaging waste tracked

London— A new system to handle and disseminate information and data on packaging waste is to be developed by the Advisory Committee on Packaging (ACP).

The National Packaging Waste Database will be designed to help with the packaging waste recycling and recovery regime, which place obligations on businesses to put to better use some of the packaging that they deal with.

It will remove the need for businesses to submit hard copy data to regulators and could eventually lead to the use of electronic Packaging Recovery Notes (PRNs) and Packaging Export Recovery Notes (PERNs).

Ultimately the new database will help industry obtain the latest data in a more timely way, thereby helping the packaging market to operate more effectively.

It is also expected to help combat incidences of fraud by reprocessors and help identify so called free-riders - businesses who avoid meeting their obligations under the regulations.

Regulators are expected to benefit from considerable administrative time savings, allowing them to spend more time on enforcing the regulations.

The system will be designed and implemented through a project team reporting to the ACP and on completion will be owned and operated by regulators - the Environment Agency, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and the Northern Ireland Environment and Heritage Service.

It is expected that the reprocessor module will be in operation this year and that the registration module will be available for the 2007 registration process.