The Environment Agency has decided glass packaging waste recovered from incinerator bottom ash can no longer contribute towards packaging producer responsibility targets. The Agency has told industry that glass from IBA can no longer be used to generate glass PRNs, the evidence of producer responsibility being carried out for glass packaging waste. The handful of reprocessors that currently recycle IBA glass into aggregates & road building materials will be allowed to continue issuing glass PRNs against such material for the remainder of 2006. But from 2007, their accreditations to issue the PRNs will be terminated. The Environment Agency's Jeff Cooper explained that the decision had been taken because Britain was "out of kilter" with the rest of Europe in defining glass from IBA ash as a product of "recycling" rather than "recovery". Therefore, issuing a glass "recycling" PRN on glass from a "recovery" process should not be allowed, he said. "It's about what is a proper 'recycling' process," Mr Cooper said. "In our view, this is an incidental 'recovery' process for bottom ash that happens to have glass packaging waste in it."
