Stop exporting plastic waste to China to boost recycling at home, say experts

Governments must end incentives that see plastic waste shipped abroad, where it is often buried or burned, rather than being turned back into bottles at home, say industry leaders
Sandra Laville and Matthew Taylor The Guardian 29 Jun 17;

Governments must stop exporting so much plastic waste to countries such as China and keep more in-country to be recycled into bottles to tackle the waste crisis, industry insiders say.

A day after the Guardian revealed that a million plastic bottles are bought every minute across the world, experts aiming to provide a closed loop in which each bottle is used to make a new one, say their industry faces multiple hurdles.

Chris Brown of Clean Tech, based in Lincolnshire – the only site in the UK which produces food grade recycled polyethylene terephthalate (Pet) from plastic bottles to turn them into new bottles – said: “It has been a very challenging environment.”

“The recycling of Pet back into rPet (recycled plastic) is a relatively new industry and it has proven very difficult for any businesses to survive in recycled plastics. The margins are such that they struggle to be successful, particularly when the processes require large capital investment and present a significant technological challenge.”

He called for the UK government to end the incentives for export of post consumer plastic to China and other countries – more than two-thirds of plastic collected for recycling in the UK was sold abroad in 2016, where it may be incinerated or buried rather than recycled.

“Being able to keep more of that material in this country would be better for the bottle manufacturers and their customers,” he said. “It is important that the feedstock is available for rPet producers, so what we would like to see is an end to the incentivising of its export. Having an incentive to export the bales instead of keeping them in the country to be used to make more plastic bottles does not seem like what we should be doing at the moment.”

Clean Tech buys bales of post consumer plastic (Pet) bottles that have been collected in kerbside recycling. At its site in Lincolnshire, Clean Tech granulises the bales, sorts out the Pet from other plastic which might have contaminated the bale, turns it into new plastic pellets of recycled Pet and puts it through a process to make it safe to be used for drinks. Bales are then sold to companies – including Coca-Cola – who use it to make new bottles.

Its parent company, Plastipak is the biggest producer of recycled plastic for bottles in Europe.

A spokesperson for Plastipak said its three plants in Europe – in the UK, in Bearne in France and in Luxemburg – faced challenges. Urgent reform was needed to keep the recycled plastic bales in-country, the spokesperson said.

“This should be a growth industry. Everyone wants to recycle and everyone, in theory, wants to include recycled material in products. But this is a process that costs money, it is a commercial venture and one of the big hindrances is the cost of virgin material has been lower than the cost of recycled plastic partly because of the low oil price,” they said.

In the UK particularly there is a shortage of post consumer plastic to turn into recycled plastic for bottles because the collection systems are so poor. But the lack of stocks for creating recycled plastic is a global problem.

“There is also competition for this stock – it is used for other things like the plastic tape around packages,” said the spokesperson.

Industry experts say the UK should follow the example of countries that impose a deposit return scheme on plastic bottles, which encourages higher recycling rates.

Caroline Lucas, the UK Green MP said Guardian figures which show by 2021 more than half a trillion plastic bottles will be bought across the globe, were shocking. “Global plastic bottle use is spiralling out of control. The environmental consequences of a million plastic bottles being used every minute are absolutely devastating,” said Lucas.

“As consumers we can all make choices which limit our plastic bottle use, but the key to solving this crisis is action from governments. That’s why I’m calling for a bottle deposit scheme to be implemented urgently. Currently Britain uses 38.5m plastic bottles every day – and we should be leading the world in reusing bottles and rapidly reducing our plastic waste.”

Greenpeace is pressing for the major brands to do more to increase the recycled content of their bottles. The top six drinks companies in the world use a combined average of just 6.6% of recycled Pet in their products, according to Greenpeace. Many believe Coca-Cola and other brands are not ready to increase the amount of recycled plastic because it would compromise the appearance of their bottles.

Across the UK Coca-Cola says it uses 25% of recycled plastic in its bottles. It aims to increase this to 40% by 2020.

But Coca-Cola said the 40% target would stretch with the current volumes of recycled plastic of the right quality available.

“Coca-Cola buys approximately 20% of the global food grade rPet supply available in the marketplace,” the company said. “We continue to increase the use of recycled plastic in countries where it is feasible and permitted.”