Energy supply issues and high energy costs will remain a “headache” for plastics processors and plastic packaging converters for the foreseeable future, British Plastics Federation (BPF) director-general Peter Davis has warned following a meeting with UK Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks.
Past BPF president Brian Mann and Davis, and representatives of the British Coatings Federation, British Rubber and Polyurethane Products Association, and Packaging and Industrial Films Association (PIFA), discussed the “lethal effects on employment and competitiveness of the UK plastics industry brought about by the huge rises in energy costs, and exacerbated by the unfair Climate Change Levy”.
Davis said afterwards: “On some key matters the government is responding to calls for action. The Minister assured us he and the EU Commissioners are pushing hard for liberalisation of the European energy markets, the Commission is taking legal action and we welcome the anti-trust raids on European energy companies.”
However the government seemed “more pessimistic” on managing supply and demand pressures.
The BPF advocates “a big increase” in energy from waste capacity, modernisation and development of UK nuclear capacity and withdrawal of the Climate Change Levy.
