Could today's plastic pipes be with us until 2216?
In this month’s edition of his regular column, Philip Law, Director-General of the British Plastics Federation (BPF), explains why the BPF has called for a meeting with Caroline Lucas MP and speculates as to whether plastic pipes installed today could be with us until 2216.
Following our return from the 'K' fair, the BPF staff had to hit the ground running. Early day motion 656 - Bottle Deposit Return Scheme- tabled in the House of Commons by Caroline Lucas MP allowed us to elaborate why the Federation believes deposit schemes to be a bad idea.
Unfortunately Ms Lucas did not fully consider the impacts of deposits or indeed current research on litter composition. Bottles account for only 2.5% of littered items in England (according to the Keep Britain Tidy Litter Composition Survey of England, 2014). Additionally the evidence from other countries indicates that Deposit Return Schemes (DRS) are very expensive to introduce, have a high cost for local councils, and can cause inconvenience for consumers. As Incpen have established, in Germany, the cost of collection per item through the DRS is three times as high as a kerbside system.
The introduction of such a system is likely to undermine the existing kerbside collection operated by local councils as well as penalise consumers who already recycle at home. We have put in a request for a meeting with Ms. Lucas to discuss our respective points of view.
Praise for pipes
It's good to see industry sectors pushing the properties of plastics to their extremes and recently our Plastics Pipes Liaison Group, linking up our Pipes Group members with the members of Water UK, showcased the durability of plastics pipe and how the opportunities for the sealability of pipe sections can be exploited to the full.
They have just updated and published one of the fundamental building blocks to achieving a leak-free pipeline, a specification for the fusion jointing of polyethylene pipes, or to give it its full technical name, 'WIS 4-32-08: Issue 4, Fusion jointing of polyethylene pressure pipeline systems using PE80 and PE100 materials'.
The water industry is now confident that properly designed and installed plastics piping can last for over 100 years, indeed there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that lifespans of 200 years could be within our grasp. This was the basis of a workshop held at the BPF on November 2nd.
Scoring successes at K
Back to the K fair, the BPF scored a couple of big successes. The first was that alongside our project partners, Axion Consulting, BPF won the Sustainability category of the 2016 INOVYN Awards for its work on RecoMed, the PVC medical devices take-back scheme Funded by VinylPlus, and supervised by the BPF's Vinyls Group,the scheme provides an alternative and sustainable disposal route for waste medical items made from high-quality medical grade PVC.
It does a lot to extend the impressive list of sustainability credentials underpinning PVC: it spotlights the efficient use of resources and it helps participating hospitals to save cash at a difficult point for the NHS. Last year RecoMed’s contribution was recognised by the 2015 Environment Award offered by the Association for Anaesthetic and Respiratory Device and the Society for Anaesthetists. We estimate that some 2,250 tonnes of PVC could be recycled by collecting items, such as anaesthetic facemasks, oxygen masks and associated tubing, from UK hospitals. Nine hospitals are currently taking part in RecoMed.
The second success was the launch by PlasticsEurope and the BPF of an educational toolkit designed to engage younger children with polymer science through a series of experiments that point up the properties and applications of plastics. With a guidance booklet featuring a character named Olly, it is designed to engage pupils aged between six and ten. It will form a key part of our forthcoming 'Ambassadors Campaign' and our volunteer Ambassadors are currently being given specific training in the use of the Kit.