We have worked through a decade of major change and expansion in the waste industry and secondary materials markets. The primacy is now with the need to make more efficient use of these resources. Reprocessors and recyclers play a pivotal role in advancing the resources economy through the efficient collection and reprocessing of materials. Until efficient, carbon beneficial recovery and reprocessing is achieved, waste remains, and is often treated as, no more than an environmental pollutant with a cost to society. The Resource Association’s approach will place secondary material and its efficient recovery at the centre of all decision-making process. The European Commission has set out a similar vision in its Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe.
We will seek to work collaboratively with like-minded groups and businesses and we will look for partnership opportunities wherever possible. In particular, we wish to work complementarily to existing material-specific trade associations and where needed provide a championing voice to unite shared agendas in the reprocessing and recycling sector.
The diversity of our industry is a positive aspect of recent expansion but it has its disadvantages in terms of the ability of the industry to assert the weight of its real impact in the UK and wider economy. We seek to provide a vehicle that will articulate the full value of the industry to Government and its agencies, opinion formers and the wider public. It is time that the real value of the reprocessing and recycling industries was recognised.
