Print, warehouse and mail company the Astron Group have been fined a total of £7,484 for failing their environmental duty under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations SI 2005/3468. The company's business involves pack filling packaging and selling packaging in the form of letter inserts and booklets at their premises in Manchester and Aylesbury. As a pack filler, the Astron Group are obliged to recover and recycle the equivalent of 37% of their packaging, but told investigating officers of the Environment Agency, who became aware of the situation when carrying out an environmental audit, that they were unaware of the Regulations and had been slow to register once they did know. The charges relate to two years of non-compliance, with three offences of not registering, failing to take steps to recover and recycle and failing to have a certificate that the provisions had been followed.
The aim of the packaging Regulations is to reduce the amount going to landfill, and they apply to companies with an annual turnover of over £2 million, handling more than 50 tonnes of packaging per year. The Astron Group had an annual turnover of £138 million and £245 million for the years for which they were prosecuted, and handled 130 tonnes and 160 tonnes of packaging, respectively. As a result, they saved around £3,000 by not registering.
In other packaging waste news, the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations SI 2007/871, came into force on 15 March 2007 and revoke and replace the previous Regulations. Essentially these new provisions make some technical changes and set out the National Packaging Waste Database (NPWD). As a result, they make provision for the electronic submission of packaging waste recovery notes (PRNs) and packaging waste export recovery notes (PERNs).
