Policy of shipping recyclable waste to China needs reviewing, say experts

The shipping of recyclable material to China should be reviewed amid fears recycling could be adding to global warming rather than reducing it, experts claimed.

Louise Gray, The Telegraph 28 Jan 09;

In recent years the Government has increased the amount of waste being recycled to a third in a bid to reduce landfill. The policy has included fortnightly bin collections, the introduction of slop buckets and even fines for not separating plastic from paper.

Exports of recovered paper increased from 400,000 tonnes in 1998 to around 4.7m tonnes in 2007 and exports of recovered plastics increased from less than 40,000 tonnes to more than 500,000 in the same period.

China now accounts for more than half of the UK's exports of recovered paper and more than 80 per cent of recovered plastics.

However Dr Tim Fox, head of environment at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, said recycling was not necessarily the best thing for the environment.

"By sending enormous amounts of material to recycling we are actually doing more damage to the environment particularly as a large amount of it goes overseas for processing materials that are then used for manufacturing," he said.

Dr Fox said shipping goods to China was not necessarily wise due to the carbon emissions produced through transportation and processing the materials, as well as damage to the marine environment caused by shipping.

He said: "The main reason the UK is so heavily focused on recycling is to avoid landfill. It is a relatively easy way to remove the material from landfill. The defect is there is not a big enough market for recyclables in the UK so the material goes overseas and is processed there and turned into manufactured goods which are shipped back to the UK. That whole process is potentially more damaging to the environment than producing energy from waste or taking the waste through another process."

Dr Fox called on the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs to research the impact of recycling materials versus converting waste into heat and electricity in local plants.

"There needs to be a lot more research on what is the best way to process waste – whether that is recycling or energy from waste for landfill because what is not clear is the overally carbon footprint of each of these processes and or what damage these are doing to the environment," he said.

However, Marcus Gover, Director of Market Development at WRAP, insisted that transporting recycled materials to China saved more carbon than incineration. He pointed to an earlier study that said shipping these materials more than 10,000 miles produces less CO2 than sending them to landfill at home or using brand new materials instead.

Mr Gover said the CO2 produced in the transportation was more than ruled out by the CO2 saved by not having to mine more raw materials to make items from scratch as well as the CO2 saved by not sending the materials to landfill.

He insisted the recycling industry was still cutting emissions, despite fears earlier in the year that the global economic downturn meant less material was being recycled as demand for goods dropped off.

"It has been a difficult time for recycling but the industry has really stood up well to it. It is a measure of hwo committed households and local authorities are."