J5: Prevent harmful chemicals from being recycled
Short Description
This indicator will track the amount of banned or restricted chemicals in waste which is being destroyed. The removal and proper destruction of such chemicals is necessary to prevent them contaminating recycled products or being released into the environment.
Initially the indicator will use data on the amount of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) being sent for destruction. This is in line with the goal to substantially increase the amount of POPs material being destroyed or irreversibly transformed by 2030. Similar data on elimination of the use of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) will be included once those data become available.
Where possible, these chemicals should be removed prior to disposal, minimising the amount of waste being sent for destruction. Data may soon become available for some of these waste types, enabling assessment of improvements in the quantity and quality of waste material available for recycling.
Readiness and links to data
This indicator is not available for reporting in 2023. Some data are already published via the hazardous waste interrogator. Preliminary outputs of a PCB waste tool have been published as an annex to the UK's POPs inventories Annual Report 2019. Further work is planned to expand the waste tool to include more POPs, and to improve the existing data prior to inclusion in the Outcome Indicator Framework.