While it is important that all materials are recycled including plastics, it is not acceptable for valuable resource to be landfilled.

On the issue of industry doing its part, producers have actually been contributing towards waste reprocessing infrastructure through the Packing Waste Recovery Note (PRN) system, while retailers and the suppliers of packaging materials make a significant contribution to local council finances through the payment of rates. These payments enable companies to meet their packaging waste obligation.

We strongly support increased responsibility from both industry and the public with regards to litter. However, we believe that a deposit-based scheme is a sub-optimal approach, as the cost of forcing behavioural change runs the risk of creating price inflation. Instead, we as an industry believe that we should be focusing on prioritising waste prevention in the first instance, and are working with waste companies and local authorities to promote waste reduction and recycling and recovery as part of the waste hierarchy. This work is combined with more practical measures, such as tightening packing, transport and shipping procedures, and working together with all interested parties and strakeholders to reduce the amount of litter in our environment.

In most cases this leads to recyclate being produced, which then has to compete with the highs and lows of virgin polymer prices. Great when these are high, but when low recyclers often struggle to survive.For more than 30 years mixed plastic recycling has allowed a number of niche product markets, in the form of fencing, bollards, street signs, etc., to grow, but has been limited due to their initial higher price compared to the wood substitute products they replace. In other countries the broader picture has been accepted, whereby the lack of maintenance, durability and divorce from the volatility of polymer prices has enabled sustainable use of this otherwise problematic waste fraction. Here in the U.K. however the initial price factor has deterred market development.The way to overcome this problem is to find a way to recycle the “unrecyclables”, at lowest possible cost.

By finding a way to use this *mixed fraction* avoiding separation, washing and dramatically increasing the limited throughputs achieved allows products to be made that compete directly with the traditional products they replace. Using this technology developed here in the U.K. , will enable products to be made that can economically and sustainably replace many wood and concrete end uses, allowing the improved environmental and physical performance factors to be treated as “free benefits” to the end user.* Plastic bags, yoghurt pots, multi-layer films, metallised snack packets and drinks pouches, egg cartons, hamburger boxes, , meat and fruit trays, cling and shrink film and up to 10% non-plastics in the form of paper labels, aluminium foil, organic and inorganic residues.*The technology has been developed here in the U.K., is ready to roll out and has a market potential greater than the amount of plastics being landfilled.

It is time to modify the following statements made on the Recycling Debate web page regarding plastics used in consumer products , especially in packaging:
•several types of plastics in a product, which cannot be separated – No need to separate when several types of plastics in a product are present!
•remaining food or other materials makes cleaning environmentally and economically difficult – No need to clean or remove remaining food or other materials!

Many thanks for your comment. What we meant by one central body – is not one body for the UK as a whole, but one in each of the devolved countries. At the moment there is no one body anywhere that has responsibility for marine litter. Of course various bodies such as the EA, SEPA, MCA etc all do something, but at the moment there is no coordinated strategy!.

As litter knows no boundaries we would hope that there would be consultation between countries to try and come up with some common solutions.

You might be interested to know that Scotland was the first country to understand that such an action plan is needed and following collaboration between MCS in Scotland and teh Scottish Green Party, Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead commited to producing an Marine Litter Strategy for Scotland.

Before the elections we asked each party if they would take action and received the following answers:

Huw Irranca-Davies MP, the then Minister for Marine and Natural Environment stated “If Labour is re-elected we will bring together all those who use the seas, and produce a practical action plan for more progress on tackling litter in the seas.”

Richard Benyon MP, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Wildlife has stated, “Marine litter is a massive issue in both our inshore waters and beyond. A Conservative Government will require DEFRA to draw up a cohesive strategy for dealing with this problem. This will include input from other Departments and will set out clear deliverable objectives. The new MMO will take the lead in implementing the Strategy.”

Andrew George MP Liberal Democrat said, “We agree that a Marine Litter Strategy is needed to determine what new actions are needed to tackle this growing problem.”

Our next step is to follow up on these promises adn ensure that they are turned into action!

Sue Kinsey – MCS Litter Policy Officer

We encourage you to speak to your local authority and urge them to broaden the bottle recycling to also the above products – and team up with an operator of a material recovery facility capable to sort the plastics. The content of your cupboards would be excellent feedstock for the plastics reprocessing industry who can turn this into useful new products.

When cleaning your used packaging you should use the left over water after a hand dish and not run your dishwasher or take clean hot water for the cleaning of the dirty packaging. This would much reduce/eliminate the environmental benefits of the recycling.

Your idea of crediting good behaviour tune in well with a proposal from the new government. We agree it is better to encourage good behaviour than penalise bad.

Good luck in spear-heading your ideas in your local environment. Let us know how you succeed.

I agree that developing recycling and means for efficient use of resources is a business opportunity
for the UK which should be on all stakeholders agenda. Other countries are busy doing this
and unless we do something we will be on the back foot on developing green jobs for our own
country as well securing competitiveness on the export market.

Having said that we are where we are and I believe it is better to recycle abroad than landfilling
plastics – a view that is shared by WRAP.

We are living in a global market and this means we need to improve the competitiveness
of the UK value chain – something that we should all contribute towards achieving.

Thanks for your points. From the Plastics 2020 Challenge we agree with much of what you
are saying. There are a number of points though where we would like to complement what
you say.

We disagree that degrading plastics – irrespective of means – is a way to combat littering. Giving the message that an additive will turn a plastic bag into CO2, water and biomass is too simplistic and can even potentially encourage littering. The consequences on the marine environment of the gradual degradation is neither well understood.

Also from a resource efficiency perspective we think it is wrong to degrade plastics – except for a number of specific cases like e.g. a compost bag for your kitchen food waste – as it would miss the opportunity to recover it. We would like to recycle much more plastics and what cannot be recycled would be better to combust in energy efficient energy from waste plants.

Considering that plastics are currently made almost entirely from fossil feedstock – which is finite – and that the alternative, renewable feedstock use arable land with low efficiency makes the case for more efficient use of resources much stronger and that we should allow material to “disappear” much weaker.

We believe the last drop of oil will never be used. Much before this would happen transport and heating – where we use the oil for only one role for a moment – would be using other sources. We argue that society should not accept that we “waste” oil on such a simple task but should be reserved for sophisticated and essential products like chemicals, plastics and pharmaceuticals.

In your input you mention oxo degradable plastics. In the interest of completeness I would like to add that there are also other mechanisms by which plastics can degrade. These include microbes and fungi and all degradation means come with pros and cons.

Finally the example on PLA is not representative to the current feedstock mix. Producing chemicals from sugar beet in not competitive and as a consequence corn and wheat are more used. They both have a much better mass ratio than sugar beet.

Export allows local authorities to meet recycling targets but in doing so reduces the margins for recycling companies in the U.K. Less responsible recyclers abroad can recycle low quality materials but pay inflated prices and to my knowledge they seldom return any highly contaminated loads.

This seems initially a weak complaint regarding the opportunity to make money but If all U.K. recycling companies could make profit and guarantee sustainable good quality supply from industry and consumer alike then we would invest more into projects as they would be lower risk. Then we could pay more to the council who could in turn invest in segregation, naturally improveing UK recycling.

When we discuss standardisation do we also standardise a new waste hierarchy reduce, re use, recycle in U.K. recycle abroad?

1) they use huge quantities of raw Materials i.e. over 10,000 kg of Sugar Beet are need to make 1,000kg of PLA

2) Huge amount of CO2 are generated growing & transporting the crops, then lots of energy is used in converting the organic matter to Bio-plastic.

3) According to WRAP last month (March 2010), the best route for disposal of Bio-polymers is not composting as we would hope, but recycling (where available????) or Incineration with energy recovery.

4) Many Bio-polymers do not have the properties we require such as strength to weight ratio, durability, life-span etc.

Why can’t all plastics degrade? And will Bio-plastics replace normal Plastics from Petrochemical resources.

Normal plastics can be made to Biodegrade by the use of additives in their manufacture. An Oxo-Biodegradable additive makes the material fragment due to Oxidation under the influence of Heat, Sunlight (UV) and Mechanical Action. This additive is ideal for Polypropylene and Polyethylene products as the fragments will then harmlessly Biodegrade in soil to CO2, Water and Biomass.

The answer to part 2, will Bio-plastics replace petrochemical plastics is quite simply yes, as the Petrochemical resources will run out, therefore we must conserve them, and use each plastic etc to is best advantage. It should be noted that just because a “Plastic” come from a Bio source such as Wheat or Sugar Beet, does not mean it is Bio-degradable, some are just as inert and durable as traditional plastics. However the use of Oil to make plastics etc utilises less than 4% of the oil we extract, the rest, 96% is basically burnt to make energy, heat, and power, what a waste.

Examples:
Can you imagine Life Saving Plasma and Blood in a Tin Can?

In the third world 50% of Food produce spoils before it reaches the consumer. In the Western world this is less than 3%. Much of this is due to better handling and packaging, as well as the storage advantages etc.

My feeling is that each plastic has its own market niche, and more effort should be put into making sure the correct material is used for each application, and not just looking at cost or squandering the material.

On individual materials; my issue with Plastics is they come from a very Finite source. Bio-polymers, though using materials such as Sugar Beet need an awful lot of energy to convert them, and mass of raw product (over 10,000 kg of Sugar Beet are need to make 1,000kg of PLA).

The fact that the plan of attack is so multi-faceted shows the understanding that this is not a simple problem with a simple solution.

With regard to Biodegradable plastics, what is needed is an increase in the use of Oxo-Biodegradable plastics as these do not rely on microbes for their breakdown (like many Biopolymers such as PLA), rather they are triggered by Mechanical action, sunlight and heat, so in the case of the ubiquitous plastic bag, the wave action coupled with the direct sunlight will start the process off in no time.

Again one of the simple and most powerful answers to beach waste is education, people throwing waste and rubbish away responsibly, rather on the ground when they have finished eating their picnic etc.

1)Standardize Waste collection: the Postcode lottery is correct, I live in the same city as my Mother, only 10 miles away, and we have completely different systems.

2)Waste Management should first be a Service, then an Environmental Concern, and finally a profit making Endeavour.

3)Deposits: who remembers 10p deposit on Pop Bottles; it worked, and still does in Europe. Sweden has a deposit on all plastic bottles, and it works. This can be further invested in a collection infrastructure, or the use of more friendly plastics, such as Oxo-biodegradables.

4)Penalties should be fixed and totally transparent, and apply to the whole country, and then we all know where we stand.

5Manufactures/Supermarkets etc should think a little more about the material and a little less about profit: there are lots of more environmentally friendly plastics and other materials available, but if they cost just 1% more, they are often rejected.

Your observation is shared by many people in the UK. Whilst there is a recognition with national politicians that standardisation is beneficial they are not willing to involve directly in local politics.

Hence we have a catch 22 scenario which needs to be unlocked. Experience from other countries – I myself live most of my time in Sweden – is that high recycling rates is only possible if you operate a very low number of different options for collection and the downstream infrastructure has then been geared up to deal with the collected streams.

One step on the standardisation journey is for local authorities to team up in waste partnerships and you can certainly contribute to this by talking to your local politicians and urge them to do this sensible thing if they are currently on their own.

And you are absolutely right there is no reason why we should not collect plastics bottles, pots, tubs and trays as well as the carriar bags and bread bags – we only need to ensure we have an infrastructure which can deal with the collected products.

Because if we dont have such infrastructure there is a big risk we clog the system and cause quality problems with the products currently being recycled.

Again a waste partnership can contract to a municipal recovery facility (“MRF”) which has such capability – or influence them to acquire the needed hardware.