Dec 23, 2024

Share Add to Bookmarks The new MRW handbook is now online with updated data and insight into major market changes across the sector over the last 12 months. It also aims to provide guidance on some of the main upcoming issues facing the sector. For 2025, the handbook – available in both print and digital editions for subscribers – seeks to provide a comprehensive view of markets and legislation, along with data on how the industry is reacting to these changes. Among the sector-specific focuses included in the handbook is an emerging approach to rethinking the management of WEEE. The Election of a new UK Government in July has seen the new Cabinet looking to make its mark on existing reform plans to rethink responsibility for keeping as much e-waste from landfill as possible. Some of the notable changes in the sector included a specific focus based on vape collection and treatment. There is also consideration of classifying major online marketplaces as a specific type of producer that would make them liable for coverings costs associated with the collection and management of goods sold via their platforms if not registered for WEEE. Another sector focus is the current capability to reclaim battery materials, including those incorporated into electronic equipment that would otherwise be consigned to waste. The handbook details current responsibilities outlined under the Batteries and Accumulators (Placing on the Market) Regulations with regards to supplying these goods on the market. This includes looking at the levels of hazardous substances allowable in batteries, and criteria to remove them from appliances. The comprehensive nature of the guidance touches on notable developments around the handling of materials including glass, plastic, metals and packaging. In the case of textiles , expert analysis of the sector provided from the industry, charts a number of challenges ahead that reflect wider global impacts on the value and demand for use clothing and materials. The knock-on impacts of these market challenges is expected to lead to a large of surplus textile that will need to be stored or managed, while also addressing stated intentions across the UK to implement a circular economy. There was also recognition of the announcement this year from the Germany-based textiles collection and sorting giant Soex that it was entering administration as a sign of the global nature of current issues linked to demand and supply. There is also a look at some of the monumental challenges set to face local government in 2025 that includes the planned launch of the extended producer responsibility (EPR) funding programme. A Local Authority Payments (LAPs) digital plat­form is scheduled to launch in Spring 2025 to begin to deliver payments to help cover the costs of managing council waste services with funding generated from some of the larger-scale businesses putting packaging onto the market. Details of proposed payments have now been shared with authorities with distribution of the find expected to commence later in 2025. There are also ambitions by the Labour Government for implementing a deposit return scheme (DRS) as some trade groups call for more time to implement and plan alongside other waste reforms. The handbook also considers waste crime, including the launch by the Environment Agency in early 2024 of an Economic Crime Unit that appointed has appointed a range of investigators and analysis experts with the aim to tackle money laundering and illegal payments. Another notable concern was raised about a surge in metal theft and capacity to being to address illegal sales. You can also read more about proposals by authorities for a waste crime levy financed in part through increased permit charges in order to expand enforcement activity across waste management. There is also a Health and Safety Snapshot included in the handbook. This focuses on provisional data about the health and safety of employees working across waste collection, treatment and disposal activities.