THE European Commission is causing great consternation in Britain’s packaging and waste industries. The controversy surrounds tough new targets for the recovery and recycling of specific packaging wastes. The targets will have to be achieved in the next five to six years (Packaging and Packaging Waste: Revised Recovery and Recycling Targets, HM Stationery Office).
In 1994, when the commission last set recovery targets for glass, metals, paper and plastics, they had to be met by 2001 and there was a recycling target of 15 per cent for all materials. Britain, in fact, achieved this, even for plastics – a material that can be difficult to recycle. But now the commission is proposing targets of 55 per cent for paper, 60 per cent for glass, 50 per cent for metals and 20 per cent for plastics. However, on 3 September, the European Parliament voted to extend the overall date for recycling targets to 2008.
Dorette Corbey, rapporteur for the European Parliament’s Environment Committee, claims that the aim of the targets is to minimise the environmental damage caused by packaging, but adds that more emphasis is needed on prevention. Many MPs would agree. But Alun Michael, minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in charge of green issues, is adamant that Britain cannot accept some of Corbey’s latest targets. Although there would be no targets for specific materials, an 80 per cent overall recovery would be hugely challenging for Britain.
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The problem is neither the commission nor Corbey has provided estimates of the additional costs involved in meeting the proposed targets, nor assessed the environmental benefits. Michael reckons that Britain’s packaging industry could be expected to pay between £878 million and £948 million more each year to achieve the targets.
ONE of the hurdles of using animal tissues as standby transplants in humans until a compatible match is available is that the human immune system attacks animal cells with even more vigour than it does cells from non-compatible people. However PPL Therapeutics of Edinburgh has succeeded in removing the pig genes responsible for provoking the most severe immune attacks on transplanted pig material (¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ, 31 August, p 7). Because this is likely to raise the hopes of many potential organ recipients, I asked David Lammy, the junior health minister with responsibilities for transplant matters, for a comment.
Lammy said that xenotransplantation is a potential solution to the shortage of suitable organs and tissues for transplant. And developments such as the genetic modification of animals, most notably pigs, may mean that rejection of tissue transplants between species can be overcome.
However, Lammy added that it also raises the possibility of transmitting infections from animals to humans. The well-being of transplant patients and the safety of the public in general must be foremost when considering any proposal to use animal organs or tissues in humans. The government’s policy is that a clinical trial involving xenotransplantation can only take place if there is good evidence to justify the procedure, Lammy said.
The shortage of organs for transplantation in Britain is now truly desperate. Everyone should support the improved systems of organ retrieval or the development of artificial organs and tissue engineering to counter the shortfall.
