June 23, 2025 (Packaging News) –
By Neil Merrett
The latest findings compiled by waste consultancy Monksleigh have looked at patterns from larger MRFs across the three countries that are handling comingled recyclate for the 2023 calendar year. Among the main trends was a 7% fall in the year-on-year qualifying tonnage recorded for 2023 to 3.8 million tonnes.
The term qualifying tonnage relates to requirements under environmental permitting regulations, in place across the three countries, for MRFs that are receiving more than 1,000 tonnes of mixed materials to sample input and output streams of materials.
This information is the basis for Monksleigh’s research. The findings for 2023 noted that Biffa, including the operations of its Syracuse subsidiary, operated the largest number of MRFs based on qualifying tonnage and managed the largest share of materials at these sites.
Veolia, Suex and Latco/PPP were also significant operators in terms of plant numbers and materials handled for the year. A number of MRFs being operated under contract or through arrangements with local councils, were classed in the findings as smaller-scale plants with capacities to manage under 20,000 tonnes a year.
The report added: “The large and extra large MRFs represent 27% of the market and tend to be more focused on large local authority customers.”
Changes ahead
Monksleigh noted that the latest research was measured before the introduction of revised permitting regulations from October 2024 that introduced a new definition for ‘Materials Facility’.
It added: “From 2025, this brought many more sites receiving ‘mixed material’ within the scope of the regulations and included the requirement to undertake input sampling on a greater number of material types and to assess the proportion of packaging and drinks containers.”
Initial indications in the research compiled from regulator data was that more than 70 additional sites across England and Wales would be registered and included in future research.
Monksleigh told MRW that the new regulations, based on the data gathered, were already leading to additional MRFs falling under the scope of the requirements for this current calendar year.
The consultant noted that the transition underway in the sector would also needs to factor in a range of additional reforms in legislation and policy that included the UK-wide extended producer responsibility for packaging (pEPR) regime and ‘simpler recycling’ requirements in England. The simpler recycling reforms come into force from April this year for workplaces with 10 or more employees to ensure the separation and collection of different waste streams. These same requirements will then be implemented on collections of household waste from March 2026.
The amendments, alongside the changing regulations for registration, were expected to result in increased tonnage being captured in any future MRF research, Monksleigh noted.
This was expected to lead to research criteria being adapted to account for MRFs processing multiple or more limited materials streams such as dry mixed recycling, the report authors stated.
In terms of some of the trends from the latest 2023 research, Monksleigh said that year appeared to show that less dry recyclables were being handled at MRF sites falling within scope of the regulations. This did not necessarily demonstrate a fall in recycling rates, the researchers added.
The consultancy stated: “This may be as some have moved towards segregated recycling that allows tonnage to be handled via exempt sites, or that more tonnage is being managed through sites outside the regs.”
The researchers added that other factors impacting the figures could be in the tonnage of materials being moved to Northern Ireland. The country was not included in the regulatory requirements from 2023. There was also a possibility of MRF sites taking tonnage that had not been registered as required.
Monksleigh said it had opted to undertake the qualifying tonnage research in recent years to understand the work and types of materials handled at “the larger comingled MRFs” and sites capturing municipal solid waste.
It said that evidence gathered has suggested that sites were “very effective” in sorting and processing comingled materials, despite some concerns about large contamination risks from a mixed approach.
Monskeligh added that the findings had demonstrated that MRFs exempt from, or outside the scope of legislation in 2023, or those failing to report samples, were responsible for a large proportion of recycled materials.
This story was originally published by our sister title, Materials Recycling World.
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