Dr Liz Goodwin
Posted by
Dr Liz Goodwin, CEO

The changing landscape of plastics

24 February 2010

Harnessing entrepreneurial spirit to build new markets is going to be key to Britain’s efforts to pull itself out of the gloom.

A great example is WES Greenstar. With WRAP’s help, the company plans to add 20,000 tonnes of annual reprocessing capacity for non-bottle household plastic packaging. The facility will be able to turn margarine tubs, yoghurt pots and meat trays into reusable materials mainly for industrial applications.

It’s an important link in the creation of a virtuous loop for mixed plastics which WRAP has been working hard to create. Our vision is that by 2020, 500,000 tonnes of non-bottle domestic mixed plastics will be recycled a year, a massive leap from the approximately 20,000 tonnes reprocessed now.

The UK currently recycles or recovers just under a fifth of all plastic consumed. In the past five years, the collection and reprocessing of plastic bottles has helped significantly improve things. We initially focused on bottles because they are relatively easy to separate from household waste and reprocess into high value materials. Our ability to work with all partners in the supply, distribution and disposal loop helped raise the amount of plastic bottles recycled from 18,000 tonnes, or less than 5% of the total used in the UK in 2001 to 39%, or 216,000 tonnes last year. That shows how quickly change can come with the right action and incentives.

Until recently it was thought that separating out the many other types of plastic which end up in household bins would be uneconomical and so costly in terms of resources that it would not make environmental sense.

Research and industrial trials backed by WRAP discovered this was not the case. Now Greenstar will be taking the process to a commercial scale. We hope that will help kick start the next phase of change and encourage more local authorities to collect a broader variety of plastics. There are still challenges to overcome, including finding a partner to process plastic films such as bread bags and food wrap. WRAP will be working with all parts of the market to take things forward.

Posted in:
|Reprocessing |Resource efficiency |Recycling |Plastics |Packaging |Investment |Downturn

12 comments

Comments

  • swatantra singh

    February 24 2010

    what do we do with these plastic items, glass bottles that are crushed into fine granules??? does recycling mean just crushed them and saving space :(

  • Mr. Fergus Foster

    February 25 2010

    Sir, Simply by manufacturing as many as possible plastic containers from the same type of plastic, for example the High Density Polyethylene used for milk bottles, recycling could be made far more efficient immediately. Must we really wait ten more years for a solution to such an inherently simple problem?

  • Mr. Fergus Foster

    February 25 2010

    Sir, If the packaging lifetime, or packaging recycleability, were to be more closely matched to the contents lifetime then problems could be minimised. Example of Worst Practice: Sandwich lifetime 2/3 days. Moulded plastic lifetime 500 years. Examples of best practice: Sandwich lifetime 2/3 days. Greaseproof paper or Cellophane lifetime several weeks. Milk lifetime 6 days. High Density Polyethylene bottle, recycleable.

  • Mr. Fergus Foster

    February 25 2010

    Sir, Why should recycling of a paltry 20% be considered acceptable? With a little more co-ordination (joined up thinking), and assistance from politicians and industrialists the figure could quite easily be closer to 100%

  • Mr. Fergus Foster

    March 03 2010

    Sir, Coincidentally my local council's most recent advice on recycling says that plastic containers may not be recycled, even if made from the same recyclable plastic as bottles. Why is this the case?

  • Liz Goodwin

    March 03 2010

    Swatantra, To learn more about what happens to glass and plastic when they are recycled, check out the videos on Recycle Now www.recyclenow.com/how_is_it_recycled/index.html. These materials are valuable resources.

  • Liz Goodwin

    March 03 2010

    Mr Foster, The choice of plastics depends on the applications for which they are going to be used. For example high density polyethylene is an excellent choice for milk packaging, but would not be suitable for carbonated drinks. It is interesting to note that actually only a few plastics are used in food packaging: polythene, polypropylene, PET and relatively small amounts of PVC and polystyrene.

  • Liz Goodwin

    March 03 2010

    Mr Foster, From a resource efficiency perspective, having packaging materials that would degrade as fast as a sandwich would mean that the packaging resource would be lost. By using durable materials and ensuring we recycle them we are recycling these resources. Plastics packaging often extends the shelf life of food and thereby reduces wastage both through the supply chain and for the consumer. In carbon dioxide emission reduction terms, preventing food waste is often more important than packaging.

  • Liz Goodwin

    March 03 2010

    Mr Foster, At WRAP we are continually striving to increase the recycling rate of plastics by working with local authorities, waste management companies, reprocessors, as well as central government. As an example of what can happen, 10 years ago the recycling rate for plastic bottles was 3% and it is now over 40% with every indication that this is still increasing. We are working hard to achieve similar rates of growth for the other plastics found in consumer’s bins.

  • Liz Goodwin

    March 05 2010

    Mr Foster, There could be a number of reasons why your local authority only collects plastic bottles. It is likely to be because their outlet for recyclables is only able to accept plastics bottles, or it could be that there is not sufficient capacity in the recycling container for additional plastic items.

  • Dario Dainelli

    March 11 2010

    We should be aware that recycling ins not always the best solution: perishable goods needs quite sophisticated packaging (food, vitamins, medical products) consisting of multi-component plastics. Without that type of packaging the wastage of resources incurred by loosing the packaged product would be much higher than the wastage of the packaging material. And the packaging material, too complex to be recycled, may be energy recovered: plastics have high calorific value

  • Clare Mcvety

    March 27 2010

    I wish they would recycled yoghurt pots and plastic trays because they say we are not recycled enough. But is plastic trays and yoghurt pots that fills are bins more. So we got to stop this going to landfill sites. But also I think we need more recycling bins round towns like have a litter bin next to it mite help. Clare Mcvety

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